Season of the Swamp: A Novel [Paperback]

A major new novel set in nineteenth-century New Orleans by the author ofSigns Preceding the End of the World

New Orleans, 1853. A young exile named Benito Ju?rez 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, Ju?rez 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 Ju?rez spent in New Orleans, Yuri Herrera imagines how Ju?rezs time there prepared him for what was to come. With the extraordinary linguistic play and love of popular forms that have characterized all of Herreras fiction,Season of the Swampis 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.

Born in Actopan, Mexico, Yuri Herrera is the author of three novels, includingSigns Preceding the End of the World, as well as the collectionTen Planets, which was a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize. He teaches at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Lisa Dillman lives in Decatur, Georgia, where she translates SpanilÓ|