{"product_id":"on-witness-and-respair-essays","title":"On Witness and Respair: Essays","description":"\u003cp\u003eGrief, reading and a Mississippi childhood run through nearly two decades of Jesmyn Ward's nonfiction. This book gathers her essays, introductions, a profile and speeches in one place.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReadical Key Points\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCollected nonfiction written between 2008 and 2025, with an introductory essay and three speeches not published before\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSubjects include her upbringing in rural Mississippi, the writers who shaped her, including Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, raising a Black son, and the filmmaker Ava DuVernay\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eContent note: writes directly about grief, including the deaths of her brother and her partner, and about racism\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStarred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus Reviews\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHardcover, 256 pages, Scribner, 2026\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWard writes about the books that found her, from Richard Wright's novels in childhood to Octavia Butler in her twenties, and about what a novel can do. Other pieces return to family: the crowded family house she grew up in, her brother's death in 2000, the sudden loss of her partner just before the COVID-19 pandemic in the title essay, and the vigilance of raising a son. Profiles of Ava DuVernay and Ta-Nehisi Coates sit alongside them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pieces are not arranged by date, so the book reads well straight through or a few essays at a time. It serves readers of Ward's fiction and memoir, and students of Southern and African American literature. Its title borrows an obsolete word for hope that comes after despair.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJesmyn Ward won the National Book Award for Fiction twice, for \u003cem\u003eSalvage the Bones\u003c\/em\u003e (2011) and \u003cem\u003eSing, Unburied, Sing\u003c\/em\u003e (2017). Her honors include a MacArthur Fellowship and the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction (2022), and her memoir \u003cem\u003eMen We Reaped\u003c\/em\u003e was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCondition:\u003c\/strong\u003e Brand New and Readical Ready.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReadical™ is an independent bookstore and reading-products brand built around a simple idea: books matter most when what we learn leaves the page and enters our lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eApply the Page. Get Readical™.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Scribner Book Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48026738655381,"sku":"NEW-ING-166806426X","price":29.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0800\/5861\/3909\/files\/upload-1789784979519.jpg?v=1789784981","url":"https:\/\/readical.com\/products\/on-witness-and-respair-essays","provider":"Readical","version":"1.0","type":"link"}