Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward is a distinguished American novelist and academic. She currently serves as a professor of English at Tulane University. In this role, she holds the Andrew W. Mellon Professorship in the Humanities. Ward is best known for her powerful storytelling. Her work often explores themes of familial love and community resilience. She writes about the experiences of Black families in the American South. Through her prose, she seeks to create empathy in her readers. She wants them to view her characters as deeply human beings.

Ward's writing is often shaped by her personal history and geography. Many of her novels are set in Bois Sauvage. This is a fictitious town located on the Mississippi Coast. Her debut novel, Where the Line Bleeds, follows twin brothers named Joshua and Christophe DeLisle. The story examines their diverging paths as they grow up in a rural setting. Her second novel, Salvage the Bones, focuses on the bond between siblings. It chronicles the ten days surrounding Hurricane Katrina. The characters face the storm while navigating their own difficult lives.

Her literary career was influenced by significant personal challenges. In 2000, Ward completed her master's degree at Stanford University. Shortly after, her younger brother was killed by a drunk driver. Ward chose to pursue writing to honor his memory. She also experienced the devastation of Hurricane Katrina firsthand in 2005. Her family had to flee their flooding home in DeLisle, Mississippi. They were eventually stranded in a field before finding shelter with neighbors. These experiences of loss and survival deeply inform her creative work.

Ward has achieved unprecedented success in the world of literature. She won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2011 for Salvage the Bones. She won the same prestigious award in 2017 for Sing, Unburied, Sing. This achievement is historic for the National Book Foundation. Ward is the only woman to win this award twice. She is also the only African American to achieve this feat. Her third novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, uses three distinct perspectives. It follows a boy named Jojo, his mother Leonie, and a ghost named Richie.

Her academic journey is as impressive as her literary success. Ward was the first in her family to attend college. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Stanford University in 1999. She also earned a Master of Arts in media studies and communication there in 2000. Later, she received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan in 2005. She held a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford from 2008 to 2010. She was also the John and Renee Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi.

Beyond novels, Ward contributes to important social and cultural conversations. In 2013, she published a memoir titled Men We Reaped. This book explores the lives of her brother and four other young Black men. In 2016, she edited an anthology called The Fire This Time. This collection features many writers discussing race in America. The book uses James Baldwin's 1963 work as a starting point. Ward's ability to blend personal narrative with social critique is widely recognized. In 2017, she received the MacArthur "genius grant" for her work.

Ward's work connects deeply to the broader traditions of Western literature. She often uses classical references to claim her place in the literary canon. For example, she connects her character Esch to the Greek figure Medea. Ward argues that Black and female authors should not be categorized as "other." She believes the stories of her specific community are also universal human stories. Her writing serves as a political act by demanding recognition for her characters. She continues to influence both the academic and literary worlds through her teaching and her books.