>> Dr. Carla Hayden:
Hello, I'm Carla Hayden,
the Librarian of Congress.
It is one of my great
privileges to confer the Library
of Congress's Prize for American
Fiction every year during the
National Book Festival.
The Prize for American
Fiction recognizes
and celebrates writers,
their body of work
and the power of their words.
The theme of this
year's festival,
Books Bring Us Together,
could not be more appropriate
as we bring the festival
back in person in Washington,
and it also suitably describes
the force of the books
of the author we honor today.
Jesmyn Ward is a singular
presence in American literature.
Throughout her novels,
she values the stories
of all Americans, especially the
struggles of African-Americans
in the South, who are still
suffering long after slavery.
She connects readers to the
piercing and urgent questions
about racism and
social injustice
that Americans are facing today.
Jesmyn is a voice
for a new generation,
with her lyrical
prose and sharp voice.
She's a formidable writer who
can stand tall next to and side
by side with our nation's
literary luminaries.
It is our honor to present the
2022 Library of Congress Prize
for American Fiction
to Jesmyn Ward.
As part of the 2022
National Book Festival,
she will be in conversation
with the Library
of Congress Literary
Director Clay Smith.
Clay?>
>> Clay Smith: Thanks, Dr.
Hayden, and welcome, Jesmyn,
to the 2022 National
Book Festival.
Thrilled to be here on the
writers' studio stage sponsored
by the National Endowment
for the Arts.
Show us that award that
Dr. Hayden sent to you.
>> Jesmyn Ward: Here it is.
It's big and beautiful, and
-- ooh, the glare but --
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
>> Jesmyn Ward: There it is.
There it is.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
It is really beautiful.
Well, you totally
deserve it, so.
So I mostly want to ask
about your most recent novel,
Sing Unburied Sing, but we'll
talk about all kinds of things,
and thanks again for being here.
So one of the interesting
things is that you have said
in the past, that your ideas for
your novels always come to you
in the form of a
question, and I wondered
if you remember what
question came to mind for you
when you were thinking
about what would become
Sing Unburied Sing.
>> Jesmyn Ward: Yeah, I do.
I mean, so the question
that came to mind
for Sing Unburied Sing was
basically the question of Jojo
because I was wondering
what it would be like --
so the question was what would
it be like for a kid like this,
you know, like a 13-year-old,
mixed-race kid who is growing
up in very difficult
circumstances?
What would it be like for this
kid to grow up, to come of age
in the modern South, like
in modern Mississippi?
So yeah, so that was
the question, I think,
that inspired me to
follow Jojo into the world
of Sing Unburied Sing.
It took me a while to sort
of get there, like to figure
out who he might be at
the beginning of the book
and who his family members were,
and exactly I guess
what the setup was,
like his family makeup and all
the pressures that were sort
of weighing on him, but
once I got there, really,
it was always -- the hook was
always his experience, right?
-- like this kid's experience.
And that -- so that was what
sort of led me into that world,
and sort of, you know, pushed
me through Mississippi with him.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah, and
you've written about --
you've had some of your
characters reappear
in subsequent books.
What is it like for
you in between books?
I mean, are those characters
still talking to you?
Are they -- are you
thinking about them?
>> Jesmyn Ward: I think
about them all the time,
but it's funny because I
don't -- I think that they --
it's hard for me to age them.
Like, it's hard for me to
follow them beyond, say,
like a year out from
where I left them
at the end of the book.
So for me, they're
pretty much not frozen,
because they're dynamic,
and they're real, right?
-- to me, but they're --
they live in the place where
I wrote them, you know?
So it's -- and in the situation
where I wrote them into,
so it's hard for me to, I
guess, hear them outside
of that [inaudible],
outside of that place,
and outside of that moment.
I'm always actually
working on something new,
and so maybe that's another
reason why it's sort of hard
for me to sort of pull my
characters out of the world,
you know, that I wrote them
into, because I'm always
in another world,
with a different set
of characters trying to
understand exactly why they've,
you know, drawn me to
this movement, right?
So, yes, I'm usually sort of
wrestling with a new world
and a new cast of characters.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
You know, you grew up
in DeLisle, Mississippi
and Southern Mississippi,
and you have left there,
but you've returned and live
near there now, I think.
And, you know, you have
this fictional setting
of Bois Sauvage and I
-- you evoke it so well,
and it's so detailed, and
the reader really feels
like they're there and that
they know it, but I wondered
if you've ever been
tempted to set anything
out -- that's not there.
>> Jesmyn Ward: You know
what's funny is that --
so the novel that I've
been working on for --
God, the past -- how long?
-- six years, seven
years is actually not set
in Bois Sauvage.
It is very different from
anything that I've ever written
in it, so it's the first
novel that takes place,
totally outside of Bois Sauvage.
It begins and it's set in 1835.
It follows an enslaved woman.
It begins in South
Carolina, and follows her
as she journeys south to New
Orleans, to the slave markets
in New Orleans, and then beyond
the slave markets of Orleans
to a sugar cane plantation
in Louisiana.
So it's a total departure
from basically any --
everything that I've written
before, and really, I think,
part of the reason that
I wanted to write this --
or felt called to write
this particular book is
because I had -- I was listening
to a radio show one day.
This was years and
years ago, right?
-- because I've been working on
this for six or seven years now,
and I was listening to a radio
show, and the radio show was
about the slave markets in
New Orleans, and specifically,
like slave pens in New Orleans,
the fact that -- that there --
I was listening to National
Public Radio, actually,
but it was -- it's
a local station,
WWNO out of New Orleans.
And they were saying that
there aren't -- at the time --
again, this is seven
years ago --
that there were only
two markers in the city
where there were slave pens,
and one of those markers was
in the wrong location, right?
And so it was -- it -- you
know, and you know, keep in mind
that there were dozens of
slave pens in the city, right?
New Orleans was the capital
of the domestic slave trade,
and so it was just as I
was listening to this show,
and like driving to work, I
took it to rain [phonetic],
and like driving into the
city, I was just sort of struck
by the fact that this
history had been erased.
Right? And I thought
the question, right?
-- so the question that
popped into my head was well,
what if I write about.
Like, what if I follow
a person, right?
-- but an enslaved
person, and bring this --
bring that like aspect
of history back
into the present, right?
-- in a story.
And so that's how I began
working on that novel.
Yeah, and so I think, you know,
like, much of my earlier work,
was like very invested
in exploring Bois
Sauvage [inaudible].
I still love that place
and I want to return there
in my future work, right?
But I think that something that
has been motivating my work,
my recent -- my more
recent work, is this need
to bring the past into the
president, and excavate the past
and really find people whose --
who have been like [inaudible]
from history, and
read about them.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
No, it's so wonderful
because I mean, you know,
your readers who've been
with you over your --
the three novels, I think,
that you've published,
know Bois Sauvage and, you know,
you're sort of going backwards,
I mean, you're going
backwards in time,
and so you're just going to give
the reader a much fuller picture
of where your imagination
is coming from,
so that'll be really exciting,
I think, for readers, so.
Any sense of when that
one is coming out?
Are you still working on it?
>> Jesmyn Ward: So right
now, waiting for notes
from my editor, Kathy Belden,
and so I will probably spend
the fall revising, you know,
and incorporating her
feedback into the novel,
and so we're hoping, I think,
that the book will come
out in spring of 2024.
So yeah, I think that's
the time right now.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
We'd love to talk to you
about it when it's out.
You've worked with Kathy
for a number of books now.
Right? You must have a pretty
great editing relationship.
It's such a sensitive
thing for a writer.
>> Jesmyn Ward: Yeah,
I love her.
I mean, I am so grateful
that I found her
because she's a wonderful
editor.
She's uniquely able, I
think, to read my work,
and understand what I'm trying
to accomplish in my work,
and then she tailors
her feedback
to help me accomplish
whatever it is that I'm trying
to accomplish, and she's, you
know, she's like, she's curious,
she asks questions, she,
you know, she's not --
I think I do -- I work
better with editors
who -- how do I phrase this?
-- who are curious and who do
ask questions and who, I think,
trust that if they give me
-- if they ask me a question,
and they give me this
sort of puzzle to solve
in the storytelling, that I'll
be able to solve it, you know?
And she does all of that
and she's just a very
like insightful, you know,
kind reader for my work.
I love her very much, and I'm
-- and I know that, you know,
like my books, they are
better for my relation --
because of my relationship
with her.
>> Clay Smith: So Kathy is
sort of talking back to you
in your own language,
instead of her own language
and insisting it
be done her way.
That's all you can ask for
in a good editor, so yeah.
So back to Sing Unburied
Sing, you know,
you're doing something
really interesting here,
because in the first
bit of the novel,
The first chapter is
really told by Jojo,
who you mentioned
earlier, and he, you know,
has some negative thoughts about
his mother being sort of absent
and not fulfilling that
kind of mother role,
and so then the next chapter,
Leonie, his mother, takes over.
And, you know, you've done
an interesting thing there
for the reader, where you're
sort of stacking the cards
against Leonie before we ever
hear her own side of the story,
and I wondered if you
could just talk about that.
You know, it's such a great
choice, and I just wanted
to hear more about why
you set it up that way.
>> Jesmyn Ward: Yeah, I
mean, I think in a way,
I feel like I sort of began
with Jojo as a default, right?
-- because he's the character
who drew me to this world
and this moment, and so, yeah,
and so it just felt right
to begin in his point
of view but, you know,
I struggled with Leonie's
perspective, in the beginning
of the writing process,
like when I was drafting the
rough draft, and struggled
so much because I found myself
judging her as a parent, right?
-- and judging her so
much that I realized
that I was doing a disservice
to her character, and so I had
to actually stop working on the
rough draft, go back and figure
out exactly where her -- or
attempt to figure out exactly
like where -- what was
motivating her behavior, right?
-- what was at like the heart
of her dysfunction, I think,
her sort of lashing out.
And I've -- so and
it took me a while.
It took me like a week, just
like sitting with her character,
and thinking about her story
and where she came from,
what she'd seen in her life,
and but eventually I figured
out that she had a sibling who
was killed in this terrible way.
His death was never
sort of accounted for,
like he was denied justice in
death and that that was what was
at the heart of her
dysfunction, right?
And so once I figured
that out, then I could --
then I dove back into the
writing of the rough draft,
and I think was able to
come to her character
from a place of compassion,
right?
-- and just like --
and love her in the way
that I love all my characters.
You know, and it's
something about me.
I don't know if -- I mean,
different writers work
in different ways, but
I've always loved all
of my characters, so I really
had to do a lot of work to get
to a point with her where I
sort of moved past judgment
and understood like, the root
of her sort of pain, right?
-- so that I was able to
come from a place of love
and like compassion
and empathy, right?
-- for her, and I was like,
particularly interested,
I think, in writing
from her perspective,
because I feel like, again,
like she's the kind of person
who is -- who we
tell stories about
and who there are
narratives about, right?
-- in, like popular
culture, right?
But that person, that kind
of person is seldom able
to tell their own story, right?
And so I was like,
super-invested
in giving her the
opportunity, right?
-- to speak in her own words
and sort of tell the reader,
you know, open -- sort of open
up her perspective, right?
-- and align the reader
with her perspective,
so that the reader feels real
sympathy, real empathy for her.
And that's something, you
know, I didn't realize
until I wrote her character, but
it's something that I feel like,
I'm also invested in doing
in my work because I think
about character, like Esch
from Salvage the Bones, right?
-- who was like another type
of person, you know, young,
you know, pregnant, poor,
black 15-year-old, right?
-- who -- or teen,
black teen, right?
-- who I think that there are
a lot of conversations about
and we have lots of
narrative about, but that kind
of person I don't think --
that kind of person
rarely gets the opportunity
to tell their own
stories, right?
-- and so, yeah.
So I feel like that's something
that I'm invested
in doing in my work.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
Well, you do a great job of it.
I mean, Leonie has such
a complex sort of soul,
like a complex interior
life in this novel.
And, you know, for me, that
fact brings up this question
of research in fiction and
what the limits of research
in fiction are, because you
have a character who, you know,
is sort of haunted as anyone
would be by his experience
at the sort of notorious
Parchman Prison farm,
and you also -- you know, you
have talked about in interviews
in the past about knowing
people in southern Mississippi
who are battling addiction, and
you cover that in this novel,
and so I just wanted to ask you
about, you know, to the degree
to which you do research
on these two topics,
in particular addiction and
Parchman, and when you have
to leave, when you have
to set the research
down and start imagining.
>> Jesmyn Ward: Right.
Yeah, I mean, I definitely --
I think my research
about addiction was,
I think mostly informed
by, as you said,
like a personal experience
and sort of familiarity with,
you know, with --
you know, my --
with growing up in a
place where, you know,
lots of the people
that I know, right?
-- in my sort of poor
working class, you know,
black rural community, we're
struggling with addiction,
with all types of
addiction, right?
So that -- so I think my writing
around addiction was like,
informed by personal experience,
and by sort of what I
see and saw around me.
When I was writing
about Parchman prison,
I definitely had to do a ton
of research because I realized
when I was working on the
rough draft, I had this moment
where I realized, wait,
I knew absolutely --
I know little to nothing
about Parchman prison.
I did have some, you know, some
relatives in my extended family
who had been incarcerated in
Parchman prison and, you know,
sort of I interviewed
them and talked to them
about their experiences,
but that didn't, you know,
that didn't tell me everything
that I needed to
know, and so yeah.
And so I had to research.
I had to, you know,
find books specifically
about Parchman prison, and
about incarceration and
and read those, and I'm really
grateful for those books
because those books then led me
to other characters in the book
and specifically, you
know, Richie's character,
so the character of the, you
know, the 13-year-old boy
who was a ghost, right?
-- in the present moment but
who was in Parchman prison
in the 1940s with
Jojo's grandfather.
And I, you know,
was sort of shocked
by what I learned while
I was doing the research,
because I didn't know that kids
like Richie existed, right?
I didn't know that
children, you know,
were sent to Parchman
prison for, you know,
for things that really shouldn't
even have been, you know,
categorized as crimes, and then
basically, in Parchman prison
in at least the, you
know, '30s, '40s, '50s,
they're basically re-enslaved,
and so I was just shocked,
you know, that if I hadn't gone
looking for that information,
I would have gone my whole
life without knowing, you know,
that kids like him existed.
And so again, I think, that
sense of sort of injustice
at this idea, you
know, and that children
like Richie has suffered,
and that their suffering
and that the truth of their
experience had basically been
erased from the historical
narrative, and so I wanted
to write about it, you know,
because I wanted to bring him
into the present moment, and
for that research that I'd done
to live in my reader's
imagination, right?
-- and in the public
imagination.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
Well, let me ask you more about
that because Richie, you know,
is 12, I think, in the novel,
and is a ghost and he's --
all he wants to do
is rest, you know?
He's sort of haunted by
being haunting, I guess,
and he doesn't get that rest,
and the question seems obvious,
but I'm going to ask it anyway.
Why does he not get that rest?
>> Jesmyn Ward: So there are a
couple of reasons in the book,
I think, that answer
that question of like,
why he doesn't get any rest.
So while I was researching,
I found this quote,
and it was not very specific.
You know, it wasn't attributed
to a specific, you know,
tribe in Africa, but I came
across this quote that said
that there was like --
that there was a saying in a
certain tribe in Africa where if
that -- how does it go?
-- like that there are
moments when people die so --
in such a terrible way, right?
-- that even God has
to turn his face away.
I just remember being
struck by that particular --
by that quote and by that idea,
and so I think that that's one
of the reasons that Richie
can't rest is because he died
in such a terrible
manner, right?
-- that even like the divine
had to turn their face away,
and so that's one reason that
he haunts the world, right?
And then, you know, I
think that another reason
that he can't rest is because
he can't recall how he died,
and so that's one of the things
that he wants from
Pop, from River.
He wants the story of
how he died, right?
-- so that he can have some
sort of understanding, I think,
of what of what happened
to him and perhaps
that can answer the question
of why he's bound to
this place, right?
-- , and why he can't
sort of move on.
And then I think the
third reason I think
that he can't rest is
because, you know, like, one --
so one of the ideas that I have
been sort of thinking about
and exploring recently is
like, this idea of sort
of ancestor veneration, right?
-- and so this idea
that, you know,
that people in the present
are sort of aware and sort
of honor the people that
came before them, right?
-- and sort of honor
their ancestors, right?
And in a way, that's -- I mean,
it's an expression of sort
of love and gratitude, right?
-- for the people that came
before you, and it's also sort
of a way to sort of
channel your grief, I think,
and channel that
love that you feel
for the people that you've lost.
And so at least in this world,
in the world of the book,
I think that the ancestors and
those who have gone before,
like they are aware of
that sort of love, right?
And I think, unfortunately
for Richie,
that he was unloved
in life, you know?
I mean, he -- you know, the --
when sort of I discovered his
family on the page, you know,
his mom and his siblings,
like he was a neglected
child, you know?
And I think that
his relationship
with River was really
important to him, you know,
Jojo's grandfather,
because I think
that he looked up to River.
In some ways, River was like
a big brother to him, right?
And he loved him.
He felt loved and sort of a
sense of caring from River.
And I think he's
hungry for that,
you know, as in death, right?
And that's why it's
difficult for him to move on,
because he doesn't feel that
love anymore, and in a way,
I think, he's sort
of searching for it.
>> Clay Smith: I just have
a few more questions I want
to ask you.
There's a sort of incident of
police brutality in this novel.
You know, it's sort of real-life
narrative that has become,
you know, very familiar
in the news,
and I just wondered what it's --
what does it feel like for you
to sort of think and feel your
way into a scene like that?
>> Jesmyn Ward: It
was difficult.
I mean, I think because I
was aware of all the ways
that that moment could have
gone tragically, terribly wrong.
Right? And, you know, just
like that awareness of,
of that fact, right?
-- that, you know, that Jojo
in that moment could have been,
you know, yet another,
you know, dead child.
Right? And -- but then it's
a completely different book.
Right? And I don't know.
As I was -- so writing my
way through that moment,
it was really harrowing.
I mean, it was -- it's different
because I have never
that, right?
But in a way, I think that
sense of danger, of like near
and present danger, and
that sense of terror sort
of faintly echoed, I think, what
I felt when I was sort of --
when I was writing
about Hurricane Katrina
in Salvage the Bone, right?
-- which I do personal
experience with,
or just that sense of like,
being on the cusp of a moment
where everything can
change for the worst, right?
-- where your world can
be completely unmade.
I think that that was very
-- I was very aware of that,
in that moment of
writing about, you know,
Jojo's brush with
law enforcement.
>> Clay Smith: Tell us, are
there any younger writers
that -- newer writers that you
think we all should be reading
that you're excited about?
>> Jesmyn Ward: Yeah, I -- so
I -- he's not younger than me,
I think, like maybe a year
older than me, but I always love
to bring him up in conversation
because he's a fellow
Mississippian,
and I adore his work.
I love his work, but Kiese
Laymon, definitely, definitely,
who, you know who just --
well, he came out with
the memoir a couple
of years ago named Heavy, which
was amazing, which is amazing,
and which made me cry
for like the first like,
30 pages straight,
there was just sobbing.
That -- it resonated
with me that strongly.
And then he just reissued a
novel named Long Division,
which is also amazing.
There's another writer named
Bryan Washington who wrote --
I haven't read everything
that he's written.
He has come out with a short
story collection called Lot,
which I love.
It's set in Houston.
He's a Southern writer,
and I think he's a southern
black, queer writer, right?
And so and all of
his stories are set
in like different neighborhoods
in Houston, and they are sort
of raw and tender, but
then also have a touch
of this real [inaudible]
them and just really dynamic.
I really love that collection.
And then there's a writer
who I don't know, again,
if she's younger than I am.
She might be.
Her name is Chanelle Benz
and she wrote a story --
a novel called The Gone Dead,
and it is also set
in Mississippi.
I think she has southern roots.
I don't know her specific --
I'm giving you a lot of
black southern writers today,
but she wrote this novel that
set in the Delta, and it's all
about sort of a character
returning home to the Delta,
in order to sort of deal with
her father's affairs, and he is,
you know, he is deceased, right?
So she returns, you
know, to his home, right?
She grew up elsewhere.
[inaudible].
Just the way that she
writes about the Delta.
There were so many moments where
I just had that like the shock
of recognition, so the shock of
recognition of like the Delta
and the people that
she is bringing about,
but also like the joy and the
pleasure of that recognizing,
like the familiarity of that
place and of those characters.
It's a really great book.
So that's another writer who
I've sort of read recently.
I would love all those writers
to be on everyone's radar
because they're all fantastic.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah,
so that's Kiese Laymon,
Bryan Washington,
and Chanelle Benz.
Isn't that C-H-A-N-E-L-L-E?
>> Jesmyn Ward: I think
that's how you spell it,
C-H-A-N-E-L-L-E.
>> Clay Smith: Yeah.
And B-E-N-Z.
>> Jesmyn Ward: B-E-N-Z.
>> Clay Smith: So
everybody in the audience,
you have your reading
assignments.
>> Jesmyn Ward: Right.
>> Clay Smith: Thanks so much,
Jesmyn, for talking with us
and for being our new Prize
for American Fiction honoree.
We're so proud to have you
involved with the Library
and thank you to everybody
for attending today,
and this is the start
of the festival.
Please go out and
discover some writers
and have an excellent day.
>> Jesmyn Ward: Thank you.