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On Witness and Respair: Essays
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Expected 19 May 26Win a free print copy of this book!
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25 copies available
U.S. only
The collected creative nonfiction of a singular American writer, Jesmyn Ward, including widely shared classics, three never-before-published speeches, and an introductory essay.
Respair (noun, obsolete), fresh hope after despair.
From the two-time National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Jesmyn Ward, this collection of essays documents more than a decade of work in the life of a singular writer often lauded as “the heir apparent to Toni Morrison” (LitHub). Beginning with her upbringing in a multigenerational household in rural Mississippi, the cradle of both her youth and her gift for storytelling, Ward brings her keen wisdom and hauntingly lyrical prose to a range of topics, following in her grandmother Dorothy’s footsteps when she promises always to “Tell it straight. Tell it all.”
True to her word, in these pages Ward contemplates the writers and novels of her youth and adulthood—the transformative power of discovering Octavia Butler as a twenty-something, the mirror that Richard Wright’s novels held up to her own childhood, and of course, her lifelong love for Toni Morrison. Ward ruminates on her approach to both fiction and life, reflecting on the power of the novel, how to raise a Black son in an era of rising divisiveness and cruelty, as well as her own personal tragedies—including the titular essay of the collection, which tells the story of her partner’s sudden death on the eve of the COVID-19 epidemic. Every bit as piercing and moving as her fiction, On Witness and Respair is a testament to Ward’s powers as “one of America’s finest living writers” (San Francisco Chronicle) and is a monument to hope, beauty, and personal and collective resilience.
Respair (noun, obsolete), fresh hope after despair.
From the two-time National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Jesmyn Ward, this collection of essays documents more than a decade of work in the life of a singular writer often lauded as “the heir apparent to Toni Morrison” (LitHub). Beginning with her upbringing in a multigenerational household in rural Mississippi, the cradle of both her youth and her gift for storytelling, Ward brings her keen wisdom and hauntingly lyrical prose to a range of topics, following in her grandmother Dorothy’s footsteps when she promises always to “Tell it straight. Tell it all.”
True to her word, in these pages Ward contemplates the writers and novels of her youth and adulthood—the transformative power of discovering Octavia Butler as a twenty-something, the mirror that Richard Wright’s novels held up to her own childhood, and of course, her lifelong love for Toni Morrison. Ward ruminates on her approach to both fiction and life, reflecting on the power of the novel, how to raise a Black son in an era of rising divisiveness and cruelty, as well as her own personal tragedies—including the titular essay of the collection, which tells the story of her partner’s sudden death on the eve of the COVID-19 epidemic. Every bit as piercing and moving as her fiction, On Witness and Respair is a testament to Ward’s powers as “one of America’s finest living writers” (San Francisco Chronicle) and is a monument to hope, beauty, and personal and collective resilience.
256 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication May 19, 2026
3875 people want to read
About the author
Jesmyn Ward
26 books9,589 followersJesmyn Ward is the author of Where the Line Bleeds, Salvage the Bones, and Men We Reaped. She is a former Stegner Fellow (Stanford University) and Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. She is an associate professor of Creative Writing at Tulane University.
Her work has appeared in BOMB, A Public Space and The Oxford American.
Her work has appeared in BOMB, A Public Space and The Oxford American.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 29, 2026
Respair is my new favorite word.
February 5, 2026
Jesmyn Ward! She is who I had in mind when I coined the word Prosey and created a Prosey Posse! So, even in her nonfiction her prose defies description. Prosey. I am filled with joy reading Jesmyn Ward even when she is writing of difficulties. Grief. Despair. Poverty. Loss. Longing.
When you produce a book of previously published essays, you usually get a lot of overlap, due to the collection being put together with pieces written over a number of years. But one thing that is crystal clear in this collection is how important reading was for her. Her yearning to be seen in literature was ever propulsive.
One cannot underestimate how desperate one can feel to be not only seen but have their existence validated. The way Jesmyn writes about that desperation is downright impressive and inspiring.
Standout essays include, You Tell Your Story: You Survive (Eudora Welty Lecture, address at the National Press Club), A Conflicted, Imperfect Love (Introduction, As I lay Dying, Vintage International edition) and the titular essay, In Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by a Pandemic. A lovely collection of writing from Jesmyn Ward destined to further solidifying her status as a literary luminary!!! Thanks to Scribner and Edelweiss for an advanced DRC. Book drops May, 2026
When you produce a book of previously published essays, you usually get a lot of overlap, due to the collection being put together with pieces written over a number of years. But one thing that is crystal clear in this collection is how important reading was for her. Her yearning to be seen in literature was ever propulsive.
One cannot underestimate how desperate one can feel to be not only seen but have their existence validated. The way Jesmyn writes about that desperation is downright impressive and inspiring.
Standout essays include, You Tell Your Story: You Survive (Eudora Welty Lecture, address at the National Press Club), A Conflicted, Imperfect Love (Introduction, As I lay Dying, Vintage International edition) and the titular essay, In Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by a Pandemic. A lovely collection of writing from Jesmyn Ward destined to further solidifying her status as a literary luminary!!! Thanks to Scribner and Edelweiss for an advanced DRC. Book drops May, 2026
February 22, 2026
When reading Jesmyn Ward, words like beautiful and masterpiece lose their meaning.
She tells her stories with truth and simplicity, and with intricacy and generosity and elegance. The word “handcrafted” comes to mind. I picture her plucking words from above her brow and placing them intentionally, rearranging them on the page until they make a piece of art.
This book of essays collects her work from the last couple of decades across publications, some of which I had read, some I had not. Putting them all together in the same place allows us to more easily connect the heartstrings of so much of her work. That heartbeat is that her stories, her family’s stories, Black stories, deserve to be told straight. That the pain is not to be dimmed but the beauty shouldn’t be dimmed a bit either. She explores Black artists and storytellers who have done this, and she practices it herself. She accomplishes it so beautifully, not offering a cheap hope that ignores reality, but as the last essay indicates, an unquenchable hope that is based in the strength of the people she has known and witnessed. I am so grateful that her grandmother taught her to “Tell it straight, tell it all.” And I am so grateful that she continues to open up her heart and share her stories with us.
She tells her stories with truth and simplicity, and with intricacy and generosity and elegance. The word “handcrafted” comes to mind. I picture her plucking words from above her brow and placing them intentionally, rearranging them on the page until they make a piece of art.
This book of essays collects her work from the last couple of decades across publications, some of which I had read, some I had not. Putting them all together in the same place allows us to more easily connect the heartstrings of so much of her work. That heartbeat is that her stories, her family’s stories, Black stories, deserve to be told straight. That the pain is not to be dimmed but the beauty shouldn’t be dimmed a bit either. She explores Black artists and storytellers who have done this, and she practices it herself. She accomplishes it so beautifully, not offering a cheap hope that ignores reality, but as the last essay indicates, an unquenchable hope that is based in the strength of the people she has known and witnessed. I am so grateful that her grandmother taught her to “Tell it straight, tell it all.” And I am so grateful that she continues to open up her heart and share her stories with us.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
In On Witness and Respair, Jesmyn Ward invites us into a deeply personal decade of her life. Ten years
of her life shaped by grief, return, motherhood, and the healing power of literature. These essays feel intimate and rooted in Mississippi as both a home place and a site of remembering.
Ward writes honestly about leaving for Stanford and feeling small and untethered, then finding her way back to herself through home and through the writers who mirrored her interior life including Octavia Butler, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison.
I was moved most by the essays on loss and anticipatory grief: the death of her brother, the sudden death of her partner, and the fear and vigilance of raising a Black son in America. Ward’s prose is lyrical without being precious, piercing without spectacle. I finished this collection feeling like I know her better and feeling newly called to revisit her fiction with deeper understanding. This is a book about witnessing, survival, and the quiet hope that comes after life breaks your heart over and over again.
of her life shaped by grief, return, motherhood, and the healing power of literature. These essays feel intimate and rooted in Mississippi as both a home place and a site of remembering.
Ward writes honestly about leaving for Stanford and feeling small and untethered, then finding her way back to herself through home and through the writers who mirrored her interior life including Octavia Butler, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison.
I was moved most by the essays on loss and anticipatory grief: the death of her brother, the sudden death of her partner, and the fear and vigilance of raising a Black son in America. Ward’s prose is lyrical without being precious, piercing without spectacle. I finished this collection feeling like I know her better and feeling newly called to revisit her fiction with deeper understanding. This is a book about witnessing, survival, and the quiet hope that comes after life breaks your heart over and over again.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the advanced reader copy! All thoughts are my own:
A collection of essays from Jesmyn Ward about her upbringing in rural Mississippi, COVID, social justice, and the novels and writers that influenced her own storytelling.
I’m pretty selective with my nonfiction reads. I requested this one on NetGalley since it’s from my favorite author (and Mississippi native) and I’ve got tickets to attend her talk on this book at my local bookstore in May. Man am I glad to have read it.
The way Ward writes about Mississippi, the good and the bad, is the most accurate account ive ever read. In every one of her books ive read. The influence of these other authors she writes about here is clear throughout her other writings too.
However, I’ve found no one in literature that writes creative nonfiction as well as Ward. This book does a lot of things but at the top of that list for me is that it does Mississippi justice.
(The only nonfiction book I’ve ever read in one sitting [over like 150 pages, that is])
A collection of essays from Jesmyn Ward about her upbringing in rural Mississippi, COVID, social justice, and the novels and writers that influenced her own storytelling.
I’m pretty selective with my nonfiction reads. I requested this one on NetGalley since it’s from my favorite author (and Mississippi native) and I’ve got tickets to attend her talk on this book at my local bookstore in May. Man am I glad to have read it.
The way Ward writes about Mississippi, the good and the bad, is the most accurate account ive ever read. In every one of her books ive read. The influence of these other authors she writes about here is clear throughout her other writings too.
However, I’ve found no one in literature that writes creative nonfiction as well as Ward. This book does a lot of things but at the top of that list for me is that it does Mississippi justice.
(The only nonfiction book I’ve ever read in one sitting [over like 150 pages, that is])
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
5 stars
Leave it to Jesmyn Ward to give us our word of the moment and a whole lot of fabulous content to show vs. tell.
I absolutely love Ward's fiction and could not wait to get my paws on this nonfiction collection. My very high expectations were not only met but - as is usual with this author - exceeded.
Having just come off a strong fictional work that was extremely sad, I appreciate Ward's "respair" focused perspective even more. Times are tough, and in these moments, we thrive in that sense of forthcoming hope and possibility. It's not always easy to find or hold onto, but these essays are constant memories and examples - including in the repeated introductions of specific personal losses - of how that hope can function and save us from our circumstances and ourselves.
Ward is a gift, and this collection is yet another compelling example of why.
*Special thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for this arc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Leave it to Jesmyn Ward to give us our word of the moment and a whole lot of fabulous content to show vs. tell.
I absolutely love Ward's fiction and could not wait to get my paws on this nonfiction collection. My very high expectations were not only met but - as is usual with this author - exceeded.
Having just come off a strong fictional work that was extremely sad, I appreciate Ward's "respair" focused perspective even more. Times are tough, and in these moments, we thrive in that sense of forthcoming hope and possibility. It's not always easy to find or hold onto, but these essays are constant memories and examples - including in the repeated introductions of specific personal losses - of how that hope can function and save us from our circumstances and ourselves.
Ward is a gift, and this collection is yet another compelling example of why.
*Special thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for this arc, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
ARC for review. To be published May 19, 2026.
5 stars
A collection of Ward’s essays, articles and speeches. It’s wonderful, though sometimes repetitive, since the parts were not intended to be a book; she recollects some events in her life several times, obviously. However, hearing some of them again was actually a treat.
I’ve been meaning to read Ward for years but the synopses of her books always make them sound so depressing. I must choose one and give it a try. She is a writer we need in our world today.
My favorite article was the title one, but her life: her Mississippi upbringing, Hurricane Katrina, COVID, the death of her partner, is fascinating, and she also includes profiles of some famous black artists. I was impressed by the lot. If you’ve read and admired Ward you should read this.
5 stars
A collection of Ward’s essays, articles and speeches. It’s wonderful, though sometimes repetitive, since the parts were not intended to be a book; she recollects some events in her life several times, obviously. However, hearing some of them again was actually a treat.
I’ve been meaning to read Ward for years but the synopses of her books always make them sound so depressing. I must choose one and give it a try. She is a writer we need in our world today.
My favorite article was the title one, but her life: her Mississippi upbringing, Hurricane Katrina, COVID, the death of her partner, is fascinating, and she also includes profiles of some famous black artists. I was impressed by the lot. If you’ve read and admired Ward you should read this.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to Net Galley and Scribner for this Advance Reader’s Copy of On Witness and Respair.
Jesmyn Ward’s book features several essays that explore her childhood in Mississippi, living in New York after graduating from college, and what brings her back to her native Mississippi. Among her essays, three really impacted me: her transparency as she deals with navigating emotions with the loss of both her partner and her brother; her reflections as her community was impacted by Hurricane Katrina; and her thoughts on Ta-Nehisi Coates as they both worked on writing projects that told the stories of enslaved people. Her thoughts on raising a son in this current climate circles back to her writing about her family history of loss.
Ward’s ability to weave her reflections on poverty, grief, and how that impacts community is masterful. I highly recommend her book.
Jesmyn Ward’s book features several essays that explore her childhood in Mississippi, living in New York after graduating from college, and what brings her back to her native Mississippi. Among her essays, three really impacted me: her transparency as she deals with navigating emotions with the loss of both her partner and her brother; her reflections as her community was impacted by Hurricane Katrina; and her thoughts on Ta-Nehisi Coates as they both worked on writing projects that told the stories of enslaved people. Her thoughts on raising a son in this current climate circles back to her writing about her family history of loss.
Ward’s ability to weave her reflections on poverty, grief, and how that impacts community is masterful. I highly recommend her book.
Review of advance copy
This collection is as unflinching and moving as it is refreshing and resilient.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
4.5
March 7, 2026
Some absolutely fantastic essays from Jesmyn Ward, ranging from book intros to writing about her experiences in Hurricane Katrina and Covid, and existing as a Black woman in the hellscape that is modern America, while still finding joy in her family and to be able to continue on. Comes out in May, and highly recommended when it does.
March 17, 2026
"I shoulder past accusations of trauma porn, of trying to make people feel bad abut themselves and history, of exploiting poverty, of gross exaggeration, and I tell this American story. I tell this Southern gothic, this Mississippi tale. I write toward what hurts. I write toward the truth, and I tell it again. I scribe the whole."
This book, like everything Jesmyn Ward writes, is beautiful. She writes about hard truths lyrically, and I learned things and was moved.
Four rather than five stars because this fell short for me as a collection. I appreciated all of these as individual pieces, but I felt like it fell a little short as a whole.
Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner!
This book, like everything Jesmyn Ward writes, is beautiful. She writes about hard truths lyrically, and I learned things and was moved.
Four rather than five stars because this fell short for me as a collection. I appreciated all of these as individual pieces, but I felt like it fell a little short as a whole.
Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews