The Modern Novel

Home » Mexico » Yuri Herrera » La estación del pantano (Season of the Swamp)

Yuri Herrera: La estación del pantano (Season of the Swamp)

Publishing history

Benito Juárez filled several political roles during a turbulent time in Mexico’s history, including that of president. In 1853, when this novel takes place, his glory years were mainly ahead of him. In 1853 Antonio López de Santa Anna became president, he and he sent Juárez into exile as he could not forgive Juárez for forbidding his entry into Oaxaca in 1847. In his autobiography Apuntes para mis hijos (Notes for My Children) (link in Spanish) Juárez discusses many aspects of his exile. However, we know, because he tells us, that he spent eighteen months in New Orleans he but barely mentions this part of his exile. This novel is Herrera’s imagined account of those eighteen months.

Their arrival (by ship) sets the tone. They see a man being beaten up by the police. Juárez is accompanied by a man called Pepe and they are to meet a man called Mata.

This is New Orleans so some of the features of mid-nineteenth century New Orleans will be familiar to modern readers, namely crime, climate and carnival. However their first problem is accommodation. Their intention is to find their compadres and then go but it is not as simple as that. They are not helped by having only a scant knowledge of English.

Their first accommodation is somewhat dubious and they are worried about having their valuables stolen but they meet a fellow Latin American, who runs a print shop, who offers to look after their stuff and gives one of them a job. They will have various jobs throughout their stay. When they tell him that they are only staying for a few days, he comments If you knew how many people have only been here for a few days, for years.

One of the issues that does concern them is slavery. It is1853 so slavery is very much still going on. He sees an advert in a paper for a Slave Warehouse, which disgusts him and when the printer prints notices which are ads for the capture of enslaved people, he is further disgusted. The printer points out that it is the law and that as they can no longer get slaves from Africa, all slaves are now born slaves so these runaway slaves cannot easily gain freedom. He also explains the complex hierarchy of both slaves and freemen. Later they will see slave markets and the brutal treatment of slaves which horrifies them and will learn that slaves are still(illegally) being brought over from Africa. They even help a slave to escape, which is, of course a crime. To add to the horrors, they also witness an execution which is not a pretty sight.

They are there to plot the overthrow of Santa Anna, which they do but Santa Anna sends agents to bribe them to abandon their attempts.

However there is carnival and Herrera gives us a colouful description of it, including their participation, which involves singing, dancing and drinking, opera, bearbaiting as well as betting on horse races.

They later meet up with Doctor Borrego who is a conman: Eight out of ten things I sell don’t work in the slightest and Anybody who can be persuaded that they can be cured, can be cured, at least for a while. He becomes their employer but not as a doctor but in one of his sidelines – making cigars. He is also a forger. He has a cynical though probably accurate view of New Orleans: this city began with sick people, prostitutes, thieves, drunks. France sent over whatever they didn’t want. That was long ago, but some of us learned the habit of not being ashamed of that, of being detritus.

New Orleans can be quite cold in winter – I can confirm that from my own experience – but it is the heat of summer that is the killer. Every summer yellowjack (i.e.yellow fever) is rampant and many people die from it. Every day they see more mouths exploding with bloody gums. Every day there are more dead. They want to go home but it is not yet time.

While this book is more likely to resonate with the Mexican reader, who will be familiar with the story of Benito Juárez, while English-speaking readers will be less likely to know about him, the book is certainly fascinating if you know little or nothing about him. Seeing New Orleans in the mid-nineteenth century and from the perspective of a foreigner makes for interesting reading. There is also, I think, an underlying theme here. Mexico and Mexicans are all too often looked down upon in the United States, all too often seen simply as illegal immigrants. Yet here we have relatively civilised Mexicans facing a city and its people which are-crime ridden and disease-ridden, where corruption is rife, where there are open sewers and a perpetual stench and where slaves are brutalised and the poor badly treated and the police routinely beat people up. Indeed the title rather confirms this. Is Herrera making the point that it is perhaps the Mexicans who are the more civilised people?

First published in 2022 by Periférica
First English translation by And Other Stories in 2024
Translated by Lisa Dillman