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Fernanda Melchor was born in 1982 in Veracruz, Mexico. She is widely recognised as 'one of Mexico's most exciting new voices' (Guardian). She won the Anna-Seghers-Preis and the International Literature Award for Hurricane Season, which was also longlisted for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and was a New York Times Notable Book. Her most recent novel, Paradais, was published in 2022 and was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. This Is Not Miami is a collection of narrative non-fiction pieces. Melchor's books are published in thirty-four territories. She lives in Mexico. Sophie Hughes has translated works by Laia Jufresa and Enrique Vila-Matas, among others. Her translation of Fernanda Melchor's Hurricane Season was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. She has also translated Melchor's recent novel Paradais and her collection of non-fiction pieces, This Is Not Miami.
'Fernanda Melchor has a powerful voice, and by powerful I mean unsparing, devastating, the voice of someone who writes with rage, and has the skill to pull it off.' -- Samanta Schweblin 'Melchor evokes the stories of Flannery O'Connor, or Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings. Impressive.' -- Julian Lucas, The New York Times '[Hurricane Season and Paradais] establish Melchor...as the latest of Faulkner's Latin American inheritors, and among the most formidable...Melchor's prose is muscular but always attentive to the world of the senses and carried forward by an impeccable ear...She isn't holding a Stendhalian mirror up to Mexican society; she's dissecting its body and its psyche at the same time, unafraid of what she might find.' -- New Yorker 'Based on a real-life murder in rural Mexico, Fernanda's story paints a powerful, visceral story of a violent world where superstition and suspicion collide. The language - translated into English by Sophie Hughes - is astonishing and hypnotic. Tread carefully; even though this book is narrated by deeply human characters, its portrayal of cycles of abuse, poverty and despair is as unrelenting as it is beautifully crafted.' -- Michael Williams, Sydney Writers Festival 'Though there are glitters of humour and empathy, Hurricane Season is an uncompromisingly savage piece of work: difficult to escape from, built to shock. Yet it's also elating. I was left buoyed up by Melchor's anger, elated because she had shown me things I needed to be faced with.' -- Guardian on Hurricane Season 'Melchor's vulgar yet elegant prose crackles with explosive energy...Paradais is a blistering (and blisteringly intelligent) interrogation of privilege and class disparity.' -- Bram Presser on Paradais
