Let Us Descend
by Jesmyn Ward· 2023
Enslaved Annis tells her story from the Carolina rice fields to the Louisiana sugar plantations.
'Let us descend, and enter his blind world' - Dante's Inferno
Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery. The novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the guide through this journey. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother.
Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. The novel is a story of rebirth and reclamation.
The novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the land—the forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South.
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Enslaved Annis tells her story from the Carolina rice fields to the Louisiana sugar plantations. 'Let us descend, and enter his blind world' - Dante's Inferno Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery. The novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the guide through this journey. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. The novel is a story of rebirth and reclamation. The novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the land—the forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South.