Weekend reading: The Mother Swamp
Slip into the Mother Swamp
Imagine a river swamp on the edge of New Orleans that’s been inhabited for generations by women—and only women—who refuse to submit to slavery. That’s the concept behind “Mother Swamp,” the short story published last month by Mississippi write Jesmyn Ward, two-time winner of the National Book Award. Swirling history and fantasy, it rethinks what Southern wilderness can be. As a part of Amazon’s “A Point in Time Collection,” it’s available for free to Prime subscribers.
She climbed from the water, black with mud, and knew that this place, alligator ridden, riven with knock-kneed roots, trees wreathed in vines, would shelter her. She searched for a month before finding a patch of high river bluff: this is where she dug the burrow.
The last days on the island
The effort to move the …
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