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In October 2000 Jesmyn Ward’s younger brother was killed by a drunk driver; the driver was charged only with leaving the scene. Five years later Hurricane Katrina flooded her family’s house in DeLisle, Mississippi, and they ended up stranded in a field full of tractors until a family down the road took them in. Out of that came Salvage the Bones (2011), the days before a hurricane in a poor Black family on the Gulf Coast, and Men We Reaped (2013), a memoir of five young men from her community who died in four years. Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) sends a boy on a road trip to a prison with a ghost riding along; Let Us Descend (2023) follows an enslaved girl sold south. The ten writers below share her ground: the American South, family under pressure, and the dead who refuse to stay quiet.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Southern fiction · Memoir · Updated October 2026
Quick answer
If you love Jesmyn Ward, start with Toni Morrison, whose Beloved (1987) has the same murdered child who comes back. For a hurricane at the centre of a Black Southern novel, read Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), and for a Mississippi memoir of family and harm, Kiese Laymon’s Heavy (2018). Further down is a novelist who satirises what publishers expect Black fiction to be.
10 authors like Jesmyn Ward
Where to start if you loved Jesmyn Ward
If you loved Salvage the Bones, read Zora Neale Hurston.
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937): a Black woman’s life in Florida and the 1928 hurricane.
If you loved Sing, Unburied, Sing, read Toni Morrison.
Beloved (1987): a daughter who comes back from the dead to the house where she died.
If you loved Men We Reaped, read Kiese Laymon.
Heavy (2018): a Mississippi memoir written to his mother.
If you loved Let Us Descend, read Colson Whitehead.
The Underground Railroad (2016): an escape from slavery on a railway that should not exist.
If you want more Ward, read On Witness and Respair (2026).
Her new essay collection, on storytelling, witnessing racism and finding hope. Then go back to Where the Line Bleeds (2008), her first novel.
Frequently asked questions about authors like Jesmyn Ward
Who writes like Jesmyn Ward?
Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston and Kiese Laymon are the closest. Morrison writes the dead who come back, Hurston the hurricane in a Black Southern life, and Laymon the Mississippi memoir of family and harm.
What should I read after Salvage the Bones?
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), with the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane at its centre, and Natasha Trethewey’s Beyond Katrina (2010), about her family on the Gulf Coast after the storm.
What should I read after Sing, Unburied, Sing?
Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys (2019), about a Florida reform school built to break Black boys.
Is Jesmyn Ward like William Faulkner?
She grew up reading him, has named his work among the inspirations for Salvage the Bones, and writes the same state, Mississippi, with families travelling with their dead. The difference is the point of view: Faulkner wrote mostly from inside white families, Ward from inside poor Black ones.
Does Jesmyn Ward have a new book?
Yes. On Witness and Respair, a collection of essays, was published by Scribner in May 2026. Her most recent novel is Let Us Descend (2023).
Which Jesmyn Ward book should I read first?
Salvage the Bones (2011), which won her first National Book Award, is the easiest way in. Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017), which won her second, is the more ambitious book.
Sources
- Jesmyn Ward — Wikipedia
- In new essay collection, Jesmyn Ward muses on witness and respair — WFAE
- Salvage the Bones — Wikipedia
- Men We Reaped — Wikipedia
List last reviewed 31 October 2026.
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