rickayers 's review for:

Season of the Swamp by Yuri Herrera

5.0

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 This novel explores Benito Juarez exile in New Orleans in 1853 before returning and leading the Liberal government in fight against conservatives and against French intervention. Other revolutionaries in NOLA include Ocampo from Michoacan and Santacicilia from Cuba. The book is impressionistic and dreamy, with glimpses of New Orleans life before the Civil War (Black enslavement and resistance; Indian culture) as well as plotting-planning to take power in Mexico away from the Santa Ana dictatorship. Lots of coffee houses, bordellos, cigar-rolling shops, music scenes. 
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/01/books/review/yuri-herrera-season-of-the-swamp.html
 

Herrera is a professor at Tulane University so he is a leading Mexican novelist and also very knowledgeable about New Orleans. 

https://chireviewofbooks.com/2024/10/02/the-place-where-hope-makes-sense-a-conversation-with-yuri-herrera-on-season-of-the-swamp/