Bloomsbury presents Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward, read by January LaVoy.
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'A brutal, moving memoir … Anyone who emerges from America's black working-class youth with words as fine as Ward's deserves a hearing' – Guardian
'Raw, beautiful and dangerous' – New York Times Book Review
'Lavishly endowed with literary craft and hard-earned wisdom' – Time
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The beautiful, haunting memoir from Jesmyn Ward, the first woman to win the National Book Award twice
'And then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped' – Harriet Tubman
Jesmyn Ward's acclaimed memoir shines a light on the community she comes from in the small town of DeLisle, Mississippi, a place of quiet beauty and fierce attachment. Here, in the space of four years, she lost five young black men dear to her, including her beloved brother – to accidents, murder and suicide.
Their deaths were seemingly unconnected, yet their lives had been connected by identity and place. As Jesmyn dealt with these losses, she came to a staggering truth: the fates of these young men were predetermined by who they were and where they were from, because racism and economic struggle breed a certain kind of bad luck.
The agonising reality brought Jesmyn to write, at last, their true stories and her own.
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'Acute and often beautiful' – Financial Times
'Haunting' – Laurie Penny, New Statesman Books of the Year
'Elegiac, rage-filled, and uncommonly brave' – Vogue
'A brilliant book about beauty and death' – Los Angeles Times
'Essential' – San Francisco Chronicle
'Burns with brilliance' – Harper's Bazaar
'Unvarnished and penetrating' – Elle
