杰丝米妮·瓦德：论见证与愈合：随笔集 On Witness and Respair：Essays

基本信息

Publisher：Scribner

Publication date：May 19, 2026

Language：English

Print length：256 pages

ISBN-10：166806426X

ISBN-13：978-1668064269

Item Weight：12.2 ounces

Dimensions：5.25 x 1.2 x 8 inches

信息仅供参考，具体请以实物为准

书籍简介

本书收录了美国杰出作家杰斯敏·沃德的创意非虚构作品，包括广为流传的经典之作、三篇从未发表过的演讲以及一篇导言。

“Respair”（名词，已过时），指绝望之后重燃的希望。

本书出自两度荣获美国图书奖、并荣登《纽约时报》畅销书榜的杰斯敏·沃德之手，记录了这位被誉为“托妮·莫里森的接班人”（LitHub）的杰出作家十余年的创作历程。沃德从她在密西西比州乡村一个多代同堂的家庭中成长开始，那里既是她青春的摇篮，也是她讲故事天赋的摇篮。她以敏锐的智慧和令人难忘的抒情文笔，探讨了诸多主题，并秉承着祖母多萝西的遗志​​，始终坚持“实话实说，无话不谈”。

正如她所言，沃德在本书中回顾了她青年时代和成年时期接触的作家和小说——二十多岁时发现奥克塔维娅·巴特勒的改变人生的力量，理查德·赖特的小说如何映照出她童年的影子，当然，还有她终生挚爱的托妮·莫里森。沃德反思了她对待小说和生活的态度，探讨了小说的力量，如何在日益分裂和残酷的时代抚养一个黑人儿子，以及她个人的悲剧——包括本书的同名文章，讲述了她的伴侣在新冠疫情爆发前夕猝然离世的故事。本书与她的小说一样深刻动人，《见证与绝望》证明了沃德作为“美国出色的在世作家之一”（《旧金山纪事报》）的才华，也是希望、美以及个人和集体韧性的丰碑。

The collected creative nonfiction of a singular American writer, Jesmyn Ward, including widely shared classics, three never-before-published speeches, and an introductory essay.

Respair (noun, obsolete), fresh hope after despair.

From the two-time National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Jesmyn Ward, this collection of essays documents more than a decade of work in the life of a singular writer often lauded as “the heir apparent to Toni Morrison” (LitHub). Beginning with her upbringing in a multigenerational household in rural Mississippi, the cradle of both her youth and her gift for storytelling, Ward brings her keen wisdom and hauntingly lyrical prose to a range of topics, following in her grandmother Dorothy’s footsteps when she promises always to “Tell it straight. Tell it all.”

True to her word, in these pages Ward contemplates the writers and novels of her youth and adulthood—the transformative power of discovering Octavia Butler as a twenty-something, the mirror that Richard Wright’s novels held up to her own childhood, and of course, her lifelong love for Toni Morrison. Ward ruminates on her approach to both fiction and life, reflecting on the power of the novel, how to raise a Black son in an era of rising divisiveness and cruelty, as well as her own personal tragedies—including the titular essay of the collection, which tells the story of her partner’s sudden death on the eve of the COVID-19 epidemic. Every bit as piercing and moving as her fiction, On Witness and Respair is a testament to Ward’s powers as “one of America’s finest living writers” (San Francisco Chronicle) and is a monument to hope, beauty, and personal and collective resilience.

作者简介

杰斯敏·沃德毕业于密歇根大学，获艺术硕士学位，曾荣获麦克阿瑟天才奖、斯坦纳奖学金、约翰和蕾妮·格里沙姆作家驻留奖、施特劳斯生活奖，以及2022年美国国会图书馆美国小说奖。她凭借《唱吧，未葬之歌》（Sing, Unburied, Sing）和《拯救骸骨》（Salvage the Bones）两度荣获美国图书奖小说类奖项。她还著有小说《血线》（Where the Line Bleeds）和回忆录《我们收割的男人》（Men We Reaped），后者曾入围美国书评人协会奖，并荣获《芝加哥论坛报》中心地带奖和公正社会媒体奖。她目前是杜兰大学创意写作教授，居住在密西西比州。

Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the winner of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing and Salvage the Bones. She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.