New Orleans: A Literary History

by T.R. Johnson (Editor)

New Orleans is an indispensable element of America's national identity. As one of the most fabled cities in the world, it figures in countless novels, short stories, poems, plays, and films, as well as in popular lore and song. This book provides detailed discussions of all of the most significant writing that this city has ever inspired - from its origins in a flood-prone swamp to the rise of a creole culture at the edges of the European empires; from its emergence as a cosmopolitan, hemispheric crossroads and a primary hub of the slave trade to the days when, in its red light district, the children and grandchildren of the enslaved conjured a new kind of music that became America's greatest gift to the world; from the mid-twentieth-century masterpieces by William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams and Walker Percy to the realms of folklore, hip hop, vampire fiction, and the Asian and Latin American archives.

Genres: Books About Books

396 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 5, 2019

Reviews

[Allison Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Johnson’s Literary New Orleans class was my favorite course in all of college. Reading this book was like taking a time machine back to that class— learning about one of the best cities in the world through the literature written about it.