Voices Rising: More Stories from the Katrina Narrative Project

In Voices Rising II, the second compilation of stories from The Katrina Narrative Project, stories of loss, injustice and, at times, triumph are told by the people who endured Hurricane Katrina in 2005. As local and federal governments failed, citizens who lost homes, jobs and loved ones also lost hope. These are the stories of that loss but also of recovery and new-found faith and determination.

The University of New Orleans reopened online in October, 2005, only two months after the storm devasted the city and the campus. Students, faculty and the entire university community combed the region and the nation collecting interviews and oral histories from people of all walks of life who were willing to speak about their experiences. These documents, transcripts and audio recordings are now archived at the University of New Orleans Library. This second volume from the collection gives further witness to one of America's greatest disasters, one that has irreparably changed the face of the nation.

Many books have been written about the tragedy, but the work done by University of New Orleans students to collect these survivors' narratives in 2005 is groundbreaking Cutting, caustic, and riveting from start to finish, this collection does not shy away from presenting the agonies that often go unrecorded in the aftermath of a sudden disaster. Miles away from academic analysis, this is American social history from the ground up and staggering in its significance.---Colleen Mondor, Booklist

These narratives cut across age, race and neighborhood, a reminder of what we have shared and lost and struggle to rebuild.---Susan Larson, The Times Picayune