In conversation with Amber Sims
Beloved author Jesmyn Ward presents a reimagining of American Slavery in her new novel Let Us Descend. Haunting, yet replete with transcendent love, the story journeys from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Let Us Descend inscribes Black American grief and joy into the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South.
Jesmyn Ward is a two-time National Book Award winner (Sing, Unburied, Sing and Salvage the Bones), the youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and a MacArthur Fellow. Her memoir Men We Reaped was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
6:30 p.m.
Enjoy a guided tour of the Afro-Atlantic Histories exhibition. Space is limited; advance registration is strongly encouraged.