Let Us Descend

This unsettling masterpiece about an enslaved girl in the years leading up to the Civil War is by Jesmyn Ward, the youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, two-time National Book Award winner, and MacArthur Fellow. It is sure to become an immediate classic.

The poet then said, "Let us descend and enter this blind world." — Dante Alighieri, Inferno

A heartbreaking and exquisitely depicted retelling of American enslavement is found in Let Us Descend. The novel is a voyage from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the terrifying core of a Louisiana sugar plantation. It is searching, horrific, and full of divine love.

The reader is led through this hellscape by Annis, who was sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her. Annis retreats inside herself to find solace in tales of her African warrior grandmother and memories of her mother as she battles through the arduous miles-long march. Throughout, she allows herself to be a part of a world that exists outside of this one, one that is full of myth, history, and earth and water, as well as spirits that both give and take. In spite of the fact that Ward guides readers through the descent, this, her fourth book, is ultimately about reclamation and rebirth.

This remarkable novel, written by one of the most exceptionally talented and well-liked authors of her generation, imprints Black American sorrow and happiness into the beautiful yet cruel woodlands, marshes, and rivers of the American South. Jesmyn Ward's most amazing book to date, Let Us Descend is a masterpiece that will stand the test of time.