Quote by Jesmyn Ward: “We are alive. We are alive. We are alive.”

This powerful repetition emphasizes a fierce will to survive and a raw affirmation of life in the face of overwhelming hardship and trauma. It speaks to the basic human instinct to persist and find strength even when everything seems to be falling apart.

The early 2010s continued to grapple with the lingering aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, exposing deep-seated issues of poverty, race, and governmental neglect in the American South. Literature often reflected themes of resilience in crisis.

American novelist and editor who became the first woman to win the National Book Award for Fiction twice, for Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing. Her work centres the lives of Black Americans in the rural Mississippi Gulf Coast.