Chita: A Memory of Last Island (Banner Books) - Hardcover

Hearn, Lafcadio

3.72

151 ratings by Goodreads

9781578065585: Chita: A Memory of Last Island (Banner Books)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1578065585 ISBN 13: 9781578065585

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 2003

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

On August 10, 1856, the Gulf of Mexico reared up and hurled itself over Last Island, near New Orleans. The storm essentially split the island in half and swept much of it away, including its inhabitants, wealthy vacationers, and its resort hotel. There were few survivors.

Lafcadio Hearn used these basic historical facts to create Chita. Originally published in 1889, this novella is a minor masterpiece that is by turns mysterious, mesmerizing, and tragic. In the aftermath of the storm, a Spanish fisherman wades into the Gulf to pick through debris. Among the bodies, he finds one that is yet alive, a young Creole girl. Her parents are presumed to have died in the storm.

Raised by the fisherman's family, Chita grows into a strong, independent young woman. Her story is counterpointed by that of her lost father, a doctor who thinks that his daughter is dead and, as a result, devotes himself to helping others in need. When he comes to Last Island to help stem a yellow fever epidemic, he encounters Chita. The consequences are devastating.

This beautifully lush, ornately styled tale of south Louisiana in the nineteenth century is a haunting novel that is both impressionistic in its evocation of nature and realistic in its characterizations and depictions of life in this region.

Jefferson Humphries's introduction puts Chita in perspective, gives an overview of critical reactions to the novel from its initial publication to the present, and provides a capsule biography of Hearn and a commentary on the stylistic influences on his work.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Book Description:

A lush, evocative novel about a mysterious girl who survives a devastating hurricane in old Louisiana

From the Back Cover:

Written during a ten-year stay in New Orleans, Chita was Lafcadio Hearn's first novel. It is filled with beautiful language and emotion, and evokes a true sense of the location and the era.

Images are expertly imbued into the mind by vivid description. In Chita, Hearn paints life on a marshy, eclectic Gulf Coast island in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Chita is a young white girl who is orphaned by a shipwreck and then adopted by a Spanish family on the island. Languages, cultures, and people collide and meld into a nebulous, but distinctive, way of life.

Author Lafcadio Hearn was a man who wrote with perception and flair about the exotic places he was inexplicably drawn to.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.