From Jesmyn Ward--the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest
winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur
Fellow--comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic,
about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.
"'Let us descend, ' the poet now began, 'and enter this blind world.'"
--Inferno, Dante Alighieri
Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully
rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with
transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the
Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome
heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the
reader's guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the
miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of
her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout,
she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with
spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture
and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers
through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of
rebirth and reclamation.
From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her
generation, this miracle of a novel inscribes Black American grief and
joy into the very land--the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and
rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward's most
magnificent novel yet, a masterwork for the ages.
