Keynote
A major new novel set in nineteenth-century New Orleans by the author of Signs Preceding the End of the World
Book Title
Season of the Swamp
Subtitle
A Novel
Cover Image
- “Virtuosic. . . . The Juárez that Herrera conjures with his muscular prose — translated with bravura by Lisa Dillman . . . is above all a pair of eyes and ears. He’s an observer alive to the world, endowed with the foreigner’s curiosity and the subaltern’s ironic skepticism.”—Nicolás Medina Mora, The New York Times Book Review
Body
New Orleans, 1853. A young exile named Benito Juárez disembarks at a fetid port city at the edge of a swamp. Years later, he will become the first indigenous head of state in the postcolonial Americas, but now he is as anonymous and invisible as any other migrant to the roiling and alluring city of New Orleans.
Accompanied by a small group of fellow exiles who plot their return and hoped-for victory over the Mexican dictatorship, Juárez immerses himself in the city, which absorbs him like a sponge. He and his compatriots work odd jobs, suffer through the heat of a southern summer, fall victim to the cons and confusions of a strange young nation, succumb to the hallucinations of yellow fever, and fall in love with the music and food all around them. But unavoidable, too, is the grotesque traffic in human beings they witness as they try to shape their future.
Though the historical archive is silent about the eighteen months Juárez spent in New Orleans, Yuri Herrera imagines how Juárez’s time there prepared him for what was to come. With the extraordinary linguistic play and love of popular forms that have characterized all of Herrera’s fiction, Season of the Swamp is a magnificent work of speculative history, a love letter to the city of New Orleans and its polyglot culture, and a cautionary statement that informs our understanding of the world we live in.
Accompanied by a small group of fellow exiles who plot their return and hoped-for victory over the Mexican dictatorship, Juárez immerses himself in the city, which absorbs him like a sponge. He and his compatriots work odd jobs, suffer through the heat of a southern summer, fall victim to the cons and confusions of a strange young nation, succumb to the hallucinations of yellow fever, and fall in love with the music and food all around them. But unavoidable, too, is the grotesque traffic in human beings they witness as they try to shape their future.
Though the historical archive is silent about the eighteen months Juárez spent in New Orleans, Yuri Herrera imagines how Juárez’s time there prepared him for what was to come. With the extraordinary linguistic play and love of popular forms that have characterized all of Herrera’s fiction, Season of the Swamp is a magnificent work of speculative history, a love letter to the city of New Orleans and its polyglot culture, and a cautionary statement that informs our understanding of the world we live in.
List Price
$26.00
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About the Author
Credit: Tori Bush
Upcoming Events
Yuri Herrera reading and in conversation with José Aranda, Jr. about SEASON OF THE SWAMP as part of the Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series
Date:
Location:
Alley Theater in Houston, TXview map
Reading and conversation will be followed by book sale and signing. General admission tickets are $5 and will go on sale on December 3, 2024. Click here for tickets.
Praise
- “Richly imagined, profusely written.”—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
- “Told in Herrera’s typically sparkling, form-exploding language, this one is screaming ‘modern epic.’”—Brittany Allen, Literary Hub
- “Mesmerizing . . . as glorious and messy as the best New Orleans gumbo. . . . It’s a triumph.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
- “A sense of wonder and play, linguistic curiosity, and a knack for being both morbid and funny, contribute to an absorbingly pleasurable read, even amid the death and tragedy. Herrera offers another brilliant novella steeped in political and historical time and place.”—Julia Kastner, Shelf Awareness
