Through loss, Jesmyn Ward will always return to the word

Jesmyn Ward, the first Black woman to win the National Book Award for Fiction twice, returns to the emotional core of her life in her new essay collection, *On Witness and Respaire*. The book, spanning 17 years of grief and resilience, is anchored by the rediscovered word 'respaire'—meaning fresh hope after despair—a concept that became her lifeline after losing her partner, brother, and grandmother in rapid succession. Ward recounts how, during the isolating depths of the pandemic, she found solace not in escape but in the act of writing, which she sees as a form of resistance and survival. Her journey through trauma—especially the anguish of raising a Black son in America, the erasure of Black lives, and the cyclical nature of loss—reveals a profound belief in storytelling as both witness and healing. She describes how the reclamation of words like 'salvage' and 'savage' by her community embodies a fierce, defiant resilience. Ultimately, Ward argues that returning to the word—through writing, memory, and love—is the only way to survive the unbearable weight of loss and to keep hope alive in a world that often denies Black lives their full humanity.