“Let Us Descend,” the title of Jesmyn Ward’s overwhelming new novel, alludes to Dante’s “Inferno,” but her story tells the tale of a real hell on Earth. In one sense, that’s long been Ward’s setting. .
"Let Us Descend" by Jesmyn Ward, a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the youngest person ever to be honored with the Library of Congress's Prize for American Fiction, chronicles the trials of Annis, an enslaved teenager.
The latest novel from the two-time National Book Award-winner, about an enslaved Black girl in the American South, is thick with ghosts, history and searing poetry.