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Title details for Season of the Swamp by Yuri Herrera - Available

Season of the Swamp

by Yuri Herrera
Lisa Dillman
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
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.
In Season of the Swamp Yuri Herrera brilliantly reimagines how the eighteen pivotal months in New Orleans prepared Juárez for the revolutions to come. With the extraordinary linguistic play and love of popular forms that have characterized all of Herrera's fiction, it is a magnificent work of speculative history and a love letter to the city that holds up an unexpected mirror to the of world we still live in.
"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, author of The Hive and the Honey

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 1, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9798892744430
      • File size: 113431 KB
      • Duration: 03:56:18

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 8, 2024
      In this mesmerizing picaresque, Herrera (Ten Planets) speculates about the 18 months future Mexican president Benito Juárez spent in New Orleans during his exile following a dispute with then-president Santa Anna. Upon his arrival in the U.S. in December 1855, Benito and his small band of revolutionaries witness the arrest and beating of a young Black man. Troubled and disoriented, they’re then preyed upon by a family of con artists. Soon, they befriend an amoral printer named Cabañas, who rationalizes his fugitive slave posters (“It’s not like anyone’s capturing them in order to take away their freedom. They never had it to begin with”), prompting Benito to debate him. Cabañas then introduces Benito to coffee shop proprietor Thisbee, a Black woman whom Benito finds enchanting, and Benito eventually learns she’s helping people escape from slavery. Inspired by Thisbee’s resistance, Benito encourages his compatriots to develop a lofty vision for their country’s future, which Herrera never explicates. Instead, he focuses on the ways in which Benito is shaped by his stay. As glorious and messy as the best New Orleans gumbo, the novel comes together as Herrera vividly depicts the chaos of Mardi Gras, during which Benito is frightened and charmed in equal measure; the unsavory characters with whom he forms uneasy alliances; and his phantasmagorical dreams while fighting a bout of yellow fever. It’s a triumph.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Thom Rivera narrates Herrera's latest novel, which features Benito Juarez, the first Indigenous president of Mexico, who was in office from 1858 to 1872. This short yet unhurried work takes place in the 18 months of Juarez's exile in New Orleans. He funds his exile with odd jobs and spends his days drinking coffee with fellow outcasts. Rivera's clear narration delivers flawless pronunciations of Spanish and French vocabulary. With little vocal distinction between characters, Rivera amplifies Juarez's feverish view of New Orleans. While Juarez finds his own version of freedom, he observes the injustices of slavery, which makes up much of the city's commerce. At times cerebral, this novel reimagines a pivotal time in Mexico's history. C.R. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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