book cover of Sing, Unburied, Sing
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Sing, Unburied, Sing

(2017)
(The second book in the Bois Sauvage series)
A novel by

 
 
Awards
Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction Best Book (nominee)
PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction Best Book (nominee)
Women's Prize For Fiction Best Novel (nominee)
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2017
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2017
SELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW STATESMAN, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, TIME AND THE BBC
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'A must' - Margaret Atwood
'A searing, urgent read' - Celeste Ng
'Staggering'
- Marlon James
'Disarmingly beautiful' - Spectator
'Blazing with power, grief and tenderness' - Financial Times
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An intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing, Unburied, Sing examines the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power – and limitations – of family bonds.

Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. His mother, Leonie, is in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is black and her children's father is white. Embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances, she wants to be a better mother, but can't put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use.

When the children's father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love.

Rich with Ward's distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first century America.


Genre: Literary Fiction

Praise for this book

"This wrenching new novel by Jesmyn Ward digs deep into the not-buried heart of the American nightmare. A must." - Margaret Atwood

"Sing, Unburied, Sing is a road novel turned on its head, and a family story with its feet to the fire. Lyric and devastating, Ward's unforgettable characters straddle past and present in this spellbinding return to the rural Mississippi of her first book. You'll never read anything like it." - Ayana Mathis

"A searing, urgent read for anyone who thinks the shadows of slavery and Jim Crow have passed, and anyone who assumes the ghosts of the past are easy to placate. It's hard to imagine a more necessary book for this political era." - Celeste Ng

"The connection between the injustices of the past and the desperation of present are clearly drawn in Sing, Unburied, Sing, a book that charts the lines between the living and the dead, the loving and the broken. I am a huge fan of Jesmyn Ward's work, and this book proves that she is one of the most important writers in America today." - Ann Patchett

"If Sing, Unburied, Sing is proof of anything, it's that when it comes to spinning poetic tales of love and family, and the social metastasis that often takes place but goes unspoken of in marginalized communities - let alone the black American South - Jesmyn Ward is, by far, the best doing it today. Another masterpiece." - Jason Reynolds


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