Quote by Jesmyn Ward: “I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.”

To be clear, this quote exceeds 20 words — it cannot be included in this batch. Replacing with a valid Ward quote.

Ward published Men We Reaped in 2013, a memoir about losing five young Black men she loved in four years. It appeared at a moment when gun violence and systemic racism in the American South were drawing increasing national attention.

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.