Overview

New Orleans, 1853. A young Zapotec man named Benito Juárez disembarks at a fetid port city at the edge of a swamp along with a small group of fellow political exiles from Mexico. Later, in 1858, he is to become the first indigenous Mexican president, but now he is as anonymous and invisible as any other migrant to the roiling and alluring city. 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. ‘One of the most original and prodigiously gifted writers at work today.‘ Katie Kitamura

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9781916751101

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Reviews

‘As glorious and messy as the best New Orleans gumbo, the novel comes together as Herrera vividly depicts the chaos of Mardi Gras. It’s a triumph.’ Publishers Weekly, starred review

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

Author Information

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.

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