Men We Reaped (eBook)

A Memoir

Jesmyn Ward (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013 | 1. Auflage
272 Seiten
Bloomsbury Publishing (Verlag)
978-1-4088-4188-4 (ISBN)

Infos

'...And then we heard the rain falling, and that was the drops of blood falling, and when we came to get the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.' Harriet Tubman

In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five men in her life, to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth—and it took her breath away. Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships. Jesmyn says the answer was so obvious she felt stupid for not seeing it. But it nagged at her until she knew she had to write about her community, to write their stories and her own.

Jesmyn grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi. She writes powerfully about the pressures this brings, on the men who can do no right and the women who stand in for family in a society where the men are often absent. She bravely tells her story, revisiting the agonizing losses of her only brother and her friends. As the sole member of her family to leave home and pursue high education, she writes about this parallel American universe with the objectivity distance provides and the intimacy of utter familiarity.

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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_______________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 TubmanJesmyn 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._______________'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

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.9.2013
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• ISBN-10: 1-4088-4188-6 / 1408841886
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4088-4188-4 / 9781408841884