Season of the Swamp by Yuri Herrera

Season of the Swamp by Yuri Herrera

In 1853, a man named Benito Juarez disembarks at the fetid port of New Orleans. Later, in 1858, he is to become the first indigenous president of Mexico, but now he is anonymous. He falls in love with the music and food, but unavoidable, too, is the trade in human beings. A magnificent work of speculative history and a love letter to New Orleans.

‘As glorious and messy as the best New Orleans gumbo, the novel comes together as Herrera vividly depicts the chaos of Mardi GrasIt’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

‘The always thrilling and always remarkable Yuri Herrera has outdone himself here: reading Season of the Swamp is like being thrown into deep water only to open your eyes and find a haunting and haunted world, one full of magic and beauty, exiles and outsiders, longing and song. I didn’t want to surface – here I am still, in its great, brilliant light.’ Paul Yoon

‘Told in Herrera’s typically sparkling, form-exploding language, this one is screaming “modern epic.”’ Brittany Allen, Literary Hub

‘This work of speculative fiction takes up a centuries-old mystery involving a young Benito Juárez, who was Mexico’s first Indigenous president, and his relatively unknown 18-month exile in New Orleans. Herrera imagines a colourful life during a turbulent time in a culturally radiant city at the edge of a swamp.’ Wilson Wong, New York Times

‘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 scepticism.’ Nicolás Medina Mora, New York Times Book Review

‘Richly imagined, profusely written.’ Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

‘The New Orleans depicted here is carnivalesque, and the surreal spectacle of bear fights, spontaneous parades, and clandestine meetings, added to Benito’s colourful dreams about liberation and justice, give the story a vibrant, almost hallucinatory feel. . . . A thoughtful portrait of one revolutionary’s remarkable resilience, far from home.’ Kirkus Reviews

Yuri Herrera’s first novel to appear in English, Signs Preceding the End of the World, won the Best Translated Book Award and was chosen by The Guardian as one of ‘The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century’. His second novel The Transmigration of Bodies was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and his sci-fi inflected collection of stories Ten Planets was a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize. He teaches at Tulane University, New Orleans. Lisa Dillman teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She has translated a number of Spanish and Latin American writers. Her recent translations include The Bitch and Abyss by Pilar Quintana.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781916751101
ISBN 10	1916751105
Title	Season of the Swamp
Author	Yuri Herrera
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	And Other Stories
Year published	2024-11-05
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.