The New York Public Library Podcast features your favorite writers, artists, and thinkers in smart talks and provocative conversations. Listen to some of our most engaging programs, discover new ideas, and celebrate the best of today’s culture.

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On today’s episode: a conversation with Jesmyn Ward, about her most recent novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing. She spoke with Lisa Lucas, the Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. The novel was recently longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction, which Ward's novel Salvage the Bones won in 2011. Ward and Lucas shared the stage earlier this month at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Ward’s novel makes the fourth book featured on the podcast this year that was longlisted for a National Book Award. The other three were Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee, Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann, and The Blood of Emmett Till, by Timothy Tyson. All of those past episodes are still available: Min Jin Lee spoke with Simon Winchester; David Grann spoke with Jeffrey Toobin; and Timothy Tyson was joined by John Edgar Wideman and Nell Irvin Painter. Another book longlisted this year is by the Director of the Schomburg Cetner, Kevin Young: Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News will be published in November.

Ward sets the stage for the novel, and the conversation, by reading two brief sections from the beginning of Sing, Unburied, Sing. A conversation with Lucas follows.

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