Jesmyn Ward

MacArthur Genius and two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward has been described as the standout writer of her generation. The first woman and the first person of color to win two National Book Awards for Fiction—joining the ranks of Faulkner, Bellow, Cheever, Roth, and Updike—Ward’s novels Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011) build deep empathy for the human condition. Described as “the new Toni Morrison” by Betsy Burton of the American Booksellers Association, Ward’s stories are largely set on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, where she grew up and still lives, and her writing is deeply informed by the trauma of Hurricane Katrina. She is currently an associate professor of creative writing at Tulane University.