Oprah Winfrey has selected Jesmyn Ward’s Let Us Descend as the latest pick for her popular book club, Oprah Daily reports.
Ward’s novel, a finalist for the 2023 Kirkus Prize, follows Annis, a young Black woman in the pre–Civil War South who is sold to an enslaver in Louisiana. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “Ward may not tell you anything new about slavery, but her language is saturated with terror and enchantment.”
Winfrey shared the news of her selection in a video on Instagram, saying, “I have admired this author for the longest time and have read every one of her other books.…It’s set in the American South during slavery, and I promise you this story is unlike anything you ever read about this time in our nation’s history.”
Ward appeared on CBS Mornings and talked about how she missed Winfrey’s call informing her that her book would be the next book club selection.
“I saw that I had a missed Chicago number on my phone,” Ward recalled. “I called that number, and Oprah picked up the phone [and said] ‘Hi, Jesmyn, this is Oprah.’ And I was stuck. I didn’t know what to say.”
Ward talked about the writing process behind the novel, saying, “I wrote the bulk of this after 2020, when all of us were going through such incredible trials, so it was difficult, but I think that writing about Annis allowed me to find my way through very difficult situations.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
