Let Us Descend

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Let Us Descend written and read by Jesmyn Ward.

* AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK *

‘A spectacular achievement’ ANTHONY DOERR
‘Extravagantly beautiful’ DAILY MAIL
‘One of the greatest writers of all time’ JACQUELINE WOODSON
‘Extraordinary’ GUARDIAN
‘The best book I’ve read in years’ LOUISE KENNEDY

———————————-

The first weapon I ever held was my mother's hand.

On a slave plantation in the Carolinas, Annis has survived in the light of her mother’s resilience, comforted by stories of her African warrior grandmother. Everything she knows, she learned from her mother – how to fight, how to be strong, how to grow up in a world shrouded in darkness.

When she is sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, Annis must venture onward through the rich but unforgiving landscapes of the American South alone: from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans, and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Searching for relief in memories of her mother, she opens herself to a world beyond her own, teeming with spirits of earth, water, history and myth.

A reimagining of American slavery as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching, Let Us Descend offers a magnificent portrait of the strength of the human spirit and its ability to emerge from darkness into light. This is a story of beauty, love, rebirth and reclamation – a masterwork for the ages.

Praise for Sing, Unburied, Sing

‘A must’ Margaret Atwood
‘One of the most important writers in America today’ Ann Patchett
‘Ward is a lyrical, visceral storyteller’ Daily Mail
‘A searing, urgent read’ Celeste Ng
‘Plays out like a grand epic … Staggering’ Marlon James

Critics Review

I have read all of Jesmyn Ward’s books and have been a fan of her writing for years. Let Us Descend is a vital work for our culture and I’m so excited to have her newest offering as part of our Book Club
Oprah Winfrey
An extraordinary novel ... As in all of Ward’s novels, the writing is both lyrical and sharply controlled
Guardian
A poetic book about slavery … Ward’s writing is like a spirit that flits and flies ... While also going deep into the rich inner world that sustains [Annis]
Financial Times, Critic's Pick: Best Books of 2023
This harrowing, extravagantly beautiful novel at times seems to hover halfway between the real world and the spirit one. A sublime work
Daily Mail
Elegiac ... Let Us Descend is recounted with a lyrical economy
Times Literary Supplement
Ward’s specificity about the horrors of that journey – the beatings, the rapes, the near drownings, the actual drownings – is brutal. But there is also beauty: she has a poet’s ear and her repetition of phrases and conjunctions is hypnotic ... Just as Toni Morrison and Colson Whitehead used black spiritual traditions in their writing, so does Ward ... This skein of hope is what keeps one reading’
Spectator
Jesmyn Ward is one of the greatest writers of all time. And Let Us Descend, once again, proves it
Jacqueline Woodson, author of RED AT THE BONE
Exquisite, harrowing, elemental, transcendent and ultimately hopeful. The best book I’ve read in years. What a writer Jesmyn Ward is!
Louise Kennedy, author of TRESPASSES
Ward resurrects an enslaved girl out of the lost folds of the antebellum South, twists magic through every raindrop, mushroom and stalk of sugarcane, and drops you into the middle of her harrowing, unendurable, magnificent song. This is a gripping, mythic, bone-pulverizing descent into the grim darkness of American slavery – and yet somehow this novel simultaneously leaves you in awe of the human capacity to not only endure, but to ascend back to the light. A spectacular achievement
Anthony Doerr, author of ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE
A stunning achievement. Will grip you from the first word to the last
Nathan Harris, author of THE SWEETNESS OF WATER
A visceral chronicle of one young woman’s bondage ... This is a sensual book
Economist
A lush and harrowing journey through the American antebellum South ... Beautifully alive and luminous
Irish Times

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