Excerpt from Season of the Swamp by Yuri Herrera, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

ONE

The badges dragged the man from the ship, hurled him down the gangplank, and he fell in front of them and then attempted to stand, but the badges conquered him with clubs and he didn't defend himself from their blows, because his hands were clasping a treasured object to his chest. One of the badges torturing him said Drop it. They didn't speak the language, but that's what the badge was saying. Drop it! shouted the one who seemed to be the boss, and then he insulted the man; they didn't recognize the word but they recognized the language of hate. But the man did not drop it, not until three badges wrenched one arm and three wrenched the other, and the object fell to the ground and popped open, and the boss picked it up, and though he'd no doubt held objects like this one before, he was astonished to see that it was a compass.

In that frozen moment in which the badges looked at the boss and the boss looked at the compass and the man looked at the boss holding the compass and nobody knew what to do, he caught a glimpse of the tattoo on the man's back, on his shoulder blade, a glyph of a bird walking one way while looking the other.

Then time unfroze, the boss snapped the compass shut, turned, and walked off, and his badges lifted the man up only to drag him off like a beast once more and disappear into the throng.

Then everything kicked into action: the cranes hoisting sailboats, the ships loaded with hay and coal, the cotton— so much cotton, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bales of cotton— the mountains of produce being unloaded, the smell of fresh produce, the smell of rotting produce, the promiscuity of incomprehensible voices, the people bustling here and there, the smell of the people bustling here and there; to the left, dark water specked with lights; ahead, the dim lights of lampposts; to the right, the twinkling lights of the city.

They let themselves lurch between the stevedores and the men who suddenly began to swarm them, offering things and pointing this way and that.

He leaned over to Pepe and shouted into his ear did he have the address. Pepe looked stricken. What was it, what was it. A hotel. Mata had sent word that he'd wait for them at a hotel. A hotel named for a city. Or a state. Or was it a person. Something with a C.

"Hotel Chicago?" he shouted into Pepe's ear.

Pepe made squint eyes.

"Hotel Cleveland?"

Pepe dubitated, not dissenting, just dubitating.

"Hotel Cincinnati?" he asked.

Though the voices around them were a sea of unnavigable sounds, one of the squawkers accosting them beamed and, face aglow, said:

"Hotel Cincinnati," and tapped his own chest. "Hotel Cincinnati."

Then gestured for them to follow.

He shrugged and said to Pepe Let's go, and the city sucked them up like a sponge.

The man walked fast but kept turning back to ensure that he and Pepe were following; after climbing down from the levee and entering the actual city- city— less congested but more mud— their guide began to walk slower and slower, until he stopped entirely, then whistled in no apparent direction, and from the alley emerged a little kid to whom he gave instructions using the universal sign for writing, and the kid took off running. Their guide turned back to them and thumbs- upped in triumph, then walked on once more.

They came to a house with a torch over the door. With a majestic flourish, their guide, spent, offered them the narrow square door as if it were the entrance to a palace. Beside it, a strip of cloth read Hotel Cincinnati.

They entered single file; inside, the boy was still holding a hammer in one hand and a strip of fabric in the other; behind him was a dark hallway, a rocker, a fireplace around which were arranged several armchairs where three sailors sat warming their hands, and an oak table where an austere woman sat, already asking Yeah, what? with her nose.

Excerpt from Season of the Swamp. Copyright © 2022 by Yuri Herrera. English translation copyright © 2024 by Lisa Dillman. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org