Named A Most-Anticipated Book of 2026 by Oprah Daily, Time Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, LitHub, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Garden & Gun
"The two-time National Book Award winner gathers previously published essays with new pieces on topics from fiction to cinema, examining figures real and imagined. . . From celebrity profiles to DNA test results to a tender meditation on parenting a Black son, Jesmyn Ward moves nimbly among people and themes."
-Time Magazine
"The communities and ecosystems that come alive in Ward's work make you want to be with her people and creatures. . . Her sentences carry real wisdom, and wisdom seems in short supply. If she can find a path to collective resilience in these dark times, I'd better suit up and buckle down." -LA Times
"Urgently explores how art helps us survive, how grief reshapes a life, and how to keep loving in a country that often feels allergic to it. . . When the world is spinning, Ward writes the kind of sentences that make it hold still."
-Oprah Daily
"There are few writers in the world who write eloquently as Jesmyn Ward, who brings a fierceness, beauty, and the sharpest resonance to every sentence. . . Nothing Ward writes is ever extraneous, but On Witness and Respair is a notably invigorating and insightful work; a true treasure from one of our most brilliant living writers."
-Chicago Review of Books
"[A] tribute to the power of hope, beauty and resilience."
-Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Ward shows the mirrors, windows, and doors of her life that she finds in writers she loves. . . She reminds us of the healing that comes from writing and shows us hope and beauty in resilience." -Electric Literature
"Ward's signature stunning prose and her sharp observations make On Witness and Respair a must-read collection of the year." -Book Riot
"From the transformative power of novels to raising a Black son in a turbulent era, Ward offers a deeply moving testament to resilience, storytelling, and the enduring beauty of life." -Southern Living
"A frankly revealing and heart-grabbing collection." -The Denver Post
"This is an invaluable collection for Ward's fans and a terrific introduction to one of the most powerful, and graceful, voices in American literature today. We should all bear witness to Ward's words. Read and respair." -The Advocate
"Leave it to one of our greatest living writers, Jesmyn Ward, to bring back a word from the 1500s and give it fresh meaning in the title of her forthcoming book: respair, or 'fresh hope after despair.' Known for her moving and award-winning fiction, this collection of essays gives readers a sense of the powerful Southern woman behind the unforgettable stories."
-Garden & Gun
"In this dynamic volume, Jesmyn Ward vividly reflects on growing up in the US South, race, motherhood, loss, hope and humanity." -Ms. Magazine
"Beautifully crafted. . . nothing short of outstanding. . . Ward is a master [and] one of the most remarkable writers ever to be published." -Clarion Ledger
"Ward, one of America's finest writers and a two-time National Book Award winner, delivers an eclectic collection of nonfiction pieces, essays and speeches." -Orange County Register
"In this new collection of essays and speeches, Ward reminds us why she is a preeminent Southern writer. . . Ward moves between poetry, memoir, and analysis with a literary litheness that invites us to forget genre for the time that we spend with her." -Chapter 16
"A cause for celebration. . . With breathtaking candor and empathy, Ward examines the staggering trauma -- personal, generational, societal -- experienced by so many Black Americans in her native Mississippi and across the Southern United States." -Here & Now
"Few contemporary writers express the agony and beauty of Black American life as evocatively as Ward. . . In her first nonfiction collection, she seamlessly blends the personal and the political. Marvelous and unforgettable." -Booklist, STARRED review
"Though no longer in common usage, the word 'respair' means fresh hope after despair. This clear-eyed collection contains much of it." -Bookpage, STARRED review
"A stirring collection." -Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Jesmyn Ward
"Jesmyn is, quite simply, the best of us."
-Ta-Nehisi Coates
"Ward is one of America's finest living writers. Ward's mesmerizing sentences, her dazzling descriptions of the natural and unnatural, the way she coerces time and guides readers between a heartbreakingly familiar story of torment and moments of sublime tenderness, suggests a protean artist in her element."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"Jesmyn Ward does not miss."
-LitHub
"[Ward is] as an artist in total command of American English and a master of the novel form."
-Boston Globe
"Jesmyn Ward is reimagining Southern literature. . . competing with giants like William Faulkner, while mapping territory all her own."
-New York Times Magazine
"One of the most important voices in contemporary literature."
-Atlanta Journal-Constitution
