Disaster, the Past, and Resilience:

Jesmyn Wardʼs Salvage the Bones and Mother Swamp as Southern Environmental Literature

Abstract

Jesmyn Ward is a preeminent voice in 21st-century American literature, celebrated for her profound depictions of African American life and the persistent legacy of the Deep South. Her body of work demonstrates an acute awareness of historical injustices inflicted upon both human communities and the natural environment, framing their relationship through non-hierarchical networks rather than traditional binary oppositions. While much has been written on Ward’s major novels, her story Mother Swamp (2022) remains largely unexplored within the field of environmental criticism. This paper addresses this scholarly gap by situating the text alongside Salvage the Bones (2011) within the evolving context of Southern environmental literature. Although both narratives navigate the complex intersections of slavery-rooted racism and ecological degradation, they diverge significantly in their conceptualization of resilience. Specifically, the paper argues that in Mother Swamp, Ward reimagines the swamp as a site for the “anarchive”—a concept proposed by anthropologist Tim Ingold to describe the generative and unrecorded potential of lived history. By reclaiming the past as a vital source of resilience rather than mere ruin, Ward offers a new phase for the field, effectively transforming historical trauma into a creative foundation for the future.