OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • Instant New York Times Bestseller • Shortlisted for the 2024 Carnegie Medal for Excellence From Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow—comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.“‘Let us descend,’ the poet now began, ‘and enter this blind world.’” —Inferno, Dante Alighieri  Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.   Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.   From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this miracle of a novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land—the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward’s most magnificent novel yet, a masterwork for the ages.

Award-winning author Shelby Steele’s essay collection A Dream Deferred reveals the untold story behind the polarized racial politics in America today. A New York Times Notable BookThrough thought-provoking insights, National Book Critics Circle Award Winner Shelby Steele argues that a second betrayal of black freedom in the United States—the first one being segregation—emerged from the civil rights era when the country was overtaken by a powerful impulse to redeem itself from racial shame. According to Steele, 1960s liberalism had as its first and all-consuming goal the expiation of American guilt rather than the careful development of true equality between the races. In four densely argued essays, Steele takes on the familiar questions of affirmative action, multiculturalism, diversity, Afro-centrism, group preferences, victimization—and what he deems to be the atavistic powers of race, ethnicity, and gender, the original causes of oppression. A Dream Deferred is an honest, courageous look at the perplexing dilemma of race and democracy in the United States—and what we might do to resolve it.“Steele has given eloquent voice to painful truths that are almost always left unspoken in the nation’s circumscribed public discourse on race.” —New York Times“Steele’s skill compares with that of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, or Frederick Douglass.” —Chicago Tribune“Sweeping in its formulations . . . Perceptive . . . Steele is a clever critic.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review“Deeply engaging public-policy criticism.” —Booklist

A former slave embarks on a hellish journey through the post-Civil War South to reunite with his wife, in this novel by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author. With the news of General Lee’s surrender, Sam, a runaway slave who served in the Union Army, decides to leave his refuge in Philadelphia. He sets out on foot on an almost-suicidal journey through the terrifying, war-torn South to Buford, Mississippi, to find Tilda, the wife he was sold away from fifteen years ago. He knows quite well that his chances are slim . . . Prudence Kent, meanwhile, is heading to Buford on a different mission. The headstrong, wealthy, white war widow is leaving her Boston home to honor her abolitionist father’s dying wish: to open a school for the emancipated slaves . . . And Tilda is headed elsewhere. Her owner, Jim McFarland, is holding her at gunpoint, forcing through the charred remains of his farm and off to Arkansas, in search of a haven that will still respect his entitlements as a slaveowner and Confederate officer . . . An epic, American love story and novel touching on issues we still wrestle with long after official end of the Civil War, Freeman is, as Howard Frank Mosher of the Washington Post writes, “an important addition to the literature of slavery and the Civil War, by a knowledgeable, compassionate and relentlessly truthful writer determined to explore both enslavement in all its malignancy and also what it truly means to be free.”Perfect for fans of Cold MountainPraise for Freeman “Leonard Pitts has a passion for history and a gift for storytelling. Both shine in this story of love and redemption, which challenges everything we thought we knew about how our nation dealt with its most stubborn stain.” —Gwen Ifill, PBS, author of The Breakthrough “Columnist Leonard Pitts turns out a pretty powerful love story.” —Audie Cornish, All Things Considered “Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Pitts once again demonstrates his gift for historical fiction . . . . In lyrical prose, Pitts unflinchingly and movingly portrays the period’s cruelties, and triumphs in capturing the spirit of the times through eminently-identifiable lead characters.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

*A Zibby's Most Anticipated Book of 2023**A "Next Big Idea Club" Must-Read Book for January**An Essence "Books by Black Authors to Read This Winter" Pick?**An Ebony Entertainment "Required Reading" Book for January**A Lambda Literary "Most Anticipated LGBTQIA+ Literature" for January**A Southern Review of Books Best Book of January*A piercing collection of essays on racial tension in America and the ongoing fight for visibility, change, and lasting hope“There are stories that must be told.”Acclaimed novelist and scholar Daniel Black has spent a career writing into the unspoken, fleshing out, through storytelling, pain that can’t be described.Now, in his debut essay collection, Black gives voice to the experiences of those who often find themselves on the margins. Tackling topics ranging from police brutality to the AIDS crisis to the role of HBCUs to queer representation in the black church, Black on Black celebrates the resilience, fortitude, and survival of black people in a land where their body is always on display.As Daniel Black reminds us, while hope may be slow in coming, it always arrives, and when it does, it delivers beyond the imagination. Propulsive, intimate, and achingly relevant, Black on Black is cultural criticism at its openhearted best.