Let Us Descend
An Oprah's Book Club Pick
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
* AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK *
'A spectacular achievement' ANTHONY DOERR
'Extravagantly beautiful' DAILY MAIL
'One of the greatest writers of all time' JACQUELINE WOODSON
'Extraordinary' GUARDIAN
'The best book I've read in years' LOUISE KENNEDY
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The first weapon I ever held was my mother's hand.
On a slave plantation in the Carolinas, Annis has survived in the light of her mother's resilience, comforted by stories of her African warrior grandmother. Everything she knows, she learned from her mother – how to fight, how to be strong, how to grow up in a world shrouded in darkness.
When she is sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, Annis must venture onward through the rich but unforgiving landscapes of the American South alone: from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans, and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Searching for relief in memories of her mother, she opens herself to a world beyond her own, teeming with spirits of earth, water, history and myth.
A reimagining of American slavery as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching, Let Us Descend offers a magnificent portrait of the strength of the human spirit and its ability to emerge from darkness into light. This is a story of beauty, love, rebirth and reclamation – a masterwork for the ages.
Praise for Sing, Unburied, Sing
'A must' Margaret Atwood
'One of the most important writers in America today' Ann Patchett
'Ward is a lyrical, visceral storyteller' Daily Mail
'A searing, urgent read' Celeste Ng
'Plays out like a grand epic … Staggering' Marlon James
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ward (Sing, Unburied, Sing) returns with the wrenching and beautifully told story of a young enslaved woman on a rice farm in the Carolinas. Annis picks up survival skills from her mother, Sasha: foraging herbs and mushrooms, fighting in self-defense, calling upon spirits of nature for guidance, and knowing when to run. But after Annis's enslaver father attempts to rape her and Sasha intervenes, Sasha is sent away to be sold. Later, Annis is forcibly taken to the New Orleans slave market with Safi, another enslaved girl with whom she's fallen in love. After Annis is made to work on a sugarcane plantation, she soothes her fear and anger with the memory of Sasha ("Didn't Mama say I was my own weapon? That I was always enough to figure a way out?"). She also encounters Aza, a tempestuous wind spirit who has taken the name of Annis's grandmother. When Annis learns the truth about Aza and Sasha, she must decide if she will trust Aza or heed the bewitching calls of the other spirits to give in and join them in another realm, and thereby alleviate her suffering. Throughout, Ward uses stark and striking language to describe Annis's pain ("Every step feels like bone studding the ground: not flesh, not foot"; "My jaw aches. When I wake, my teeth are loose in my mouth"). Readers won't be able to turn away.
