N.O. Lit: 200 Years of New Orleans Literature

by Nancy Dixon (Editor)

Dixon has gathered some of the most prominent writers long associated with New Orleans, like Lafcadio Hearn, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and Eudora Welty, but perhaps more fascinating are the ones we can discover for the first time, like the writers of Les Cenelles, French Creoles of color who published the first anthology of African American literature in 1845, or Los Isleños, descendents of the 17th-century Spanish immigrants from the Canary Islands, still a close-knit community today. From the first play ever performed in New Orleans in 1809, through Tom Dent’s compelling 1967 drama of violence in the streets, Ritual Murder, this collection traces the city’s history through its authors.

Genres: Anthologies

560 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was excited when I first heard about this book and I'm very excited that it lived up to my expectations. Arranged chronologically, starting with a play by an author born ca. 1734 (Paul Louis Le Blanc de Villeneufve) and ending with a short story by one born in 1952 (Fatima Shaik), it is a history of New Orleans through literature: complete selections of plays, poetry, essays, short stories and even a novella.

In her wonderful introduction, editor Nancy Dixon points out that an important theme in that first writer's work, a drama called "The Festival of the Young Corn", is also found in the one-act play "Ritual Murder" by Tom Dent, a writer born in 1932. I also found themes in the short story "Bastien: A X-mas in the Great Salt Marshes of Louisiana" by the postbellum writer Sallie Rhett Roman that are similar to those in Richard Ford's short story "Calling".

One of the purposes of this volume is to serve as a textbook at one of the local colleges, but I read it straight through -- only skipping a handful of selections I'd read elsewhere -- and it's a revelation. Not only did it provide me with works by authors I'd not heard of before or hadn't read yet, it's also a physical resource for hard-to-find works such as Lafcadio Hearn's Chita: A Memory of Last Island or even impossible-to-find works, such as Lyle Saxon's short story "The Centaur Plays Croquet".

And though, thankfully, this volume is not focused at all on New Orleanian cliches, I found it appropriate that I finished it on Mardi Gras, i.e., today. Happy Mardi Gras, indeed.

[NOLaBookish aka blue-collared mind · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a voracious reader and a voracious New Orleanian, I believe this book is a keeper. Written by Dillard Professor (and long time UNO prof) Nancy Dixon to address the lack of a critical and diverse anthology on the city's surroundings and its culture, it delivers. She introduces each with refreshingly candid historical and critical context that sets the tone for the well-chosen pieces that range from the first play performed in the city, to the complicated world of the Creoles of Color and up to more modern fare, also complicated. Some of it is among the best stuff written on the need for dignity and meaning while in colonial places, showcasing frailties private and public, Southern and not. Dixon stops this book before the recent outpouring of work published since 2005's federal levee breaks, but that leaves me hope that she will tackle that in her next N.O anthology.

I wish this had been around when I was a teenager searching for books to read, roaming through the French Quarter's bookstores. The good news is that I'll have it into my old age to dip into to find new-to-me authors and stories about my city.

[Syd · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best tour of New Orleans literature you will ever take.