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Jesmyn Ward Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Jesmyn Ward
Photo: Beowulf Sheehan

Jesmyn Ward

How to pronounce Jesmyn Ward: JEZ-min

Jesmyn Ward Biography

Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the historic winner—first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.



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Books by this Author

Books by Jesmyn Ward at BookBrowse
On Witness and Respair jacket Let Us Descend jacket Sing, Unburied, Sing jacket Men We Reaped jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Jesmyn Ward but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Jabari Asim

    Jabari Asim

    Jabari Asim is a writer and multidisciplinary artist, who has been described as one of the most influential African American literary critics of his generation. Asim is the Elma Lewis Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Let Us Descend

    Try:
    Yonder
    by Jabari Asim

  • Afia Atakora

    Afia Atakora

    Afia Atakora was born in the United Kingdom and raised in New Jersey, where she now lives. She graduated from New York University and has an MFA from Columbia University, where she was the recipient of the De Alba Fellowship.... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Sing, Unburied, Sing

    Try:
    Conjure Women
    by Afia Atakora

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