On Witness and Respair Essays

Named A Most-Anticipated Book of 2026 by Oprah Daily, Time Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, LitHub, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Garden & Gun

"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

"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

"A stirring collection."
-Kirkus Reviews

"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

"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

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