Synopsis
New Orleans, 1853. A young Zapotec exile from Mexico 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.
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, 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 stark trade in human beings.
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.
About the author
Kim Hyesoon, born in 1955, is one of the most prominent and influential contemporary poets of South Korea. She was the first woman poet to receive the prestigious Kim Su-yong and Midang awards. In Don Mee Choi’s translations, her Autobiography of Death (2018) was the winner of the 2019 International Griffin Poetry Prize and Phantom Pain Wings won the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, the first time a translated title has won the award. Her poetry has been translated into Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, and Swedish.
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And Other Stories publishes mainly contemporary writing, including many translations. Their books aim to push people’s reading limits and help them discover authors of adventurous and inspiring writing.
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