New York Times honors Jesmyn Ward again. MS author has 3 of the best books of the century

Now a total of three books by author Jesmyn Ward have been placed on The New York Times’ best books of the 21st century.

She’s a native of DeLisle, a small town not far from Pass Christian.

She’s landed the No. 33 spot for “Salvage the Bones” and the No. 30 spot for “Sing, Unburied, Sing.”

The Time’s list ambitiously seeks to catalog the best literature, the top 100 books, of the first quarter of the 21st century. It sent out a survey tasking accomplished authors to rank books they believed belonged on the list

“Salvage the Bones” debuted in 2011 and was the second book Ward had published. It takes place in Bois Savage, a fictional town based strongly on DeLisle.

The book centers around a 15-year-old girl’s family as they prepare for a storm that’s brewing in the Gulf. There isn’t much to stock. Her father drinks heavily. Her brothers are preoccupied. And the girl, named Esch, finds out that she’s pregnant. She doesn’t have a mother and nurture is scarce, but they’re loyal to each other and face the building storm together.

“Salvage the Bones” won the 2011 National Book Award for fiction. It shows the heart and struggle of rural poverty, reviewers say.

“Sing, Unburied, Sing” was published in 2017. It also takes place in Bois Savage.

A 13-year-old boy is nearing adulthood. He’s raised predominantly by his grandfather on a farm. His mother, a black woman, does her best but she’s drug-addicted and often absent, both haunted and inspired by visions of her dead brother. The boy, named Jojo, and his toddler-aged sister, travel to the heart of Mississippi after the release of his father, a white man, from jail. There at the penitentiary, he confronts the ghost of a dead inmate. The ghost has something to teach him of the south and growing up.

“Sing, Unburied, Sing” won the 2017 National Book Award for fiction. Reviewers gush at Ward’s language and themes tied to family.

Both books were finalists for a number of different distinctions from TIME, The Times, The Atlantic and others.

She published eight books in her career. They can be found on Amazon and have been translated into a variety of languages around the world.

Earlier this week, Ward secured the No. 97 spot on The Time’s list for her 2013 memoir, “Men We Reaped.” It centers on her experience growing up in DeLisle and remembering the death of five black men who she knew growing up. They were violent deaths. Not statistics.

Ward is an English professor at Tulane University in New Orleans. She’s the only Black woman to have received two National Book Awards in fiction. She’s won another National Book Award for “Men We Reaped” and the Library of Congress’ Prize for American Fiction.