# The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race - Hardcover

by **Jesmyn Ward** (Author)

**The _New York Times_ bestseller, these groundbreaking essays and poems about race--collected by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward and written by the most important voices of her generation--are "thoughtful, searing, and at times, hopeful. _The Fire This Time_ is vivid proof that words are important, because of their power to both cleanse and to clarify" (_USA TODAY_).**

In light of recent tragedies and widespread protests across the nation, _The Progressive_ magazine republished one of its most famous pieces: James Baldwin's 1962 "Letter to My Nephew," which was later published in his landmark book, _The Fire Next Time_. Addressing his fifteen-year-old namesake on the one hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Baldwin wrote: "You know and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon."

Award-winning author Jesmyn Ward knows that Baldwin's words ring as true as ever today. In response, she has gathered short essays, memoir, and a few essential poems to engage the question of race in the United States. And she has turned to some of her generation's most original thinkers and writers to give voice to their concerns.

_The Fire This Time_ is divided into three parts that shine a light on the darkest corners of our history, wrestle with our current predicament, and envision a better future. Of the eighteen pieces, ten were written specifically for this volume.

In the fifty-odd years since Baldwin's essay was published, entire generations _have_ dared everything and made significant progress. But the idea that we are living in the post-Civil Rights era, that we are a "post-racial" society is an inaccurate and harmful reflection of a truth the country must confront. Baldwin's "fire next time" is now upon us, and it needs to be talked about.

Contributors include Carol Anderson, Jericho Brown, Garnette Cadogan, Edwidge Danticat, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Mitchell S. Jackson, Honoree Jeffers, Kima Jones, Kiese Laymon, Daniel Jose Older, Emily Raboteau, Claudia Rankine, Clint Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Wendy S. Walters, Isabel Wilkerson, and Kevin Young.

### Author Biography

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 historic winner--first woman and first Black American--of two National Book Awards for Fiction for _Sing, Unburied, Sing_ (2017) and _Salvage the Bones_ (2011). 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.

**Number of Pages:** 240

**Dimensions:** 1 x 8.5 x 5.5 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** August 02, 2016

**Accelerated Reader:**

**Quiz Name:** Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race

**Interest Level:** Upper Grades, 9-12

**Reading Level:** 8.2

**Point Value:** 9

## Details

- **Price:** 26.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 26.00 USD | In stock |

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- The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race - Hardcover

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