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"Offering a timely, crucial, and utterly intriguing perspective on the decadence of New Orleans, Robert Azzarello takes seriously the uneasy connections of decay and fecundity that have shaped the city's literature from pre-colonial times to its fragile present moment. Read this extraordinary book and you will begin to understand the literature of a city that finds its most valuable resources in social deviance and structural decay, and why such a paradox should matter so much to everyone in our troubled times."--Ruth Salvaggio, author of
Hearing Sappho in New Orleans"Decadence in New Orleans literature has often been confined to portrayals of sex and debauchery, but in
Three Hundred Years of Decadence: New Orleans Literature and the Transatlantic World, Robert Azzarello's fresh approach, through his exhaustive research and brilliant analysis, includes climate, geography, race, religion, and more. I have written about New Orleans literature for decades, and if I had to recommend one book about the city's literary history, right now, it would be this one."--Nancy Dixon, editor of
N.O. Lit: 200 Years of New Orleans Literature"Spellbound by New Orleans, Robert Azzarello summons up a sweeping and powerful reflection on the mythical, literary, and cultural heritage of one of the world's most fabled and seemingly exceptional cities. Passing texts, histories, ecologies and cultures through the multi-faceted prism of 'decadence, ' he reveals three centuries of an imaginative universe that has profound relevance to our past, our present and our future. Critically sophisticated, provocative, and entertaining, this study will reverberate for years to come."--John Lowe, author of
Calypso Magnolia: The Crosscurrents of Caribbean and Southern Literature"Azzarello's theoretically-informed lens of 'decadence' affords fresh perspectives on the significance of New Orleans in American literary history. Crossing genres, languages, centuries and continents, Azzarello posits rich trans-Atlantic contexts for familiar writers like Cable, Dunbar-Nelson, Welty and Komunyaaka, shaped by insightful readings of lesser-known works like
Atala, Reizenstein's
Mysteries of New Orleans or Moira Crone's
The Not Yet. In these pages, Louisiana's 'decadent' and apocalyptic terrain portends a future--and a past--that we can barely bear to know."--Barbara Ewell, coeditor of
Sweet Spots: In-between Spaces in New Orleans
About the author
Robert Azzarello, associate professor of English at Southern University at New Orleans, is the author of
Queer Environmentality: Ecology, Evolution, and Sexuality in American Literature.
