Fernanda Melchor and Nicole Flattery: Paradais

Mexican author Fernanda Melchor first came to the attention of the English-speaking world with Hurricane Season, a tale of murder in a lawless Mexican village, described by Ben Lerner as ‘brutal, relentless, beautiful, fugal’. In her latest novel to appear in translation Paradais (Fitzcarraldo) she continues her exploration of violence, class and misogyny with a chilling story of two misfit teenagers living in a luxury housing complex, haunted by macabre fantasies of escape. Both books have been brilliantly rendered into English by Sophie Hughes.

Melchor was in conversation about her work with Nicole Flattery, author of the collection Show Them a Good Time and winner of the 2017 White Review Short Story Prize.