Since the publication of her first novel in 2008, Jesmyn Ward has established herself as arguably the most important U.S. author of the twenty-first century. This book considers the full range of her career thus far, including National Book Award–winning novels Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing, as well as Ward’s widely acclaimed memoir, Men We Reaped.
Martyn Bone thoughtfully examines key themes running throughout Ward’s writing: Black life in the U.S. South; the legacies of slavery and segregation; neoliberalism as the contemporary form of capitalism; environmental crisis in the Anthropocene; and human-animal relations. Bone also connects Ward’s work to major figures in the U.S. literary canon, with particular focus on William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison.
“It is wonderful to read a book that takes Jesmyn Ward seriously as a writer in our time and engages her work critically and respectfully. Bone manages to give an accounting for the major thematics in Ward’s work to date, and yet also opens up space for further consideration, dialogue, and critique (no easy feat, that)—all in teachable, sparklingly clear prose. This book is critical for scholars in many overlapping fields—southern studies, Black studies, American studies, C21 studies, and beyond.”—Joanna Davis-McElligatt, coeditor, Narrating History, Home, and Dyaspora: Critical Essays on Edwidge Danticat
“A timely, scholastic endeavor that pays careful and incisive attention to Ward’s depictions of neoliberalism in relation to racial capitalism, human-animal dynamics, environmental disasters, and slavery’s traumatic aftermath. Bone’s ecocritical perspective adds to a growing collection of scholarship on Ward’s writing while also emphasizing the impact of her work along local, regional, and global scales.”—Apryl Lewis, author, Black Feminism and Traumatic Legacies in Contemporary African American Literature
“The Writings of Jesmyn Ward offers a set of rich and complex readings of Ward’s works in the context of the neoliberal present. Through these meticulous and erudite analyses, Bone rightly positions Ward’s writing at the center of twenty-first century literary studies.”—Arin Keeble, author, Narratives of Hurricane Katrina in Context: Literature, Film and Television
