Guess That Grad – April 2019

What MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow was the first woman to win the National Book Award for fiction two times?
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Jesmyn Ward poses for a portrait outside her great-grandmother's house in Pass Christian, Miss.

Jesmyn Ward, MFA ’05, won the National Book Award for two of her novels, “Salvage the Bones” (2011), and “Sing, Unburied Sing” (2017), making her the first woman to receive this award for fiction twice. In 2013, she was a National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography finalist for her memoir “Men We Reaped.” Ward is currently an associate professor of English at Tulane University.


For a list of notable U-M grads, visit alumnus.alumni.umich.edu/notable-alumni.

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