Season of the Swamp John Hodgson The mood of the novel

The mood of the novel

With too much ambition and not enough talent

Issue 24 of Banipal includes excerpts from novels by Hanan al-Shaykh and Vénus Khoury-Ghata plus an extract from The World of Saddam Hussein

are making important contributions

Season of the Swamp John Hodgson The mood of the novelNew Orleans, 1853. A young Zapotec man named Benito Jurez disembarks at a fetid port city at the edge of a swamp along with a small group of fellow political exiles from Mexico. Later, in 1858, he is to become the first indigenous Mexican president, but now he is as anonymous and invisible as any other migrant to the roiling and alluring city. He falls in love with the music and food, but unavoidable, too, is the trade in human beings. A magnificent