![]() ![]() ![]() In an introductory author’s note, she says her goal is “to tell stories in what I regard as the most honest way possible: by accepting language’s inherent obliqueness and using it to the story’s advantage.” Melchor is up-front about her intentions. Last year’s follow-up, “ Paradais,” was a slim but potent novel about a sexual assault, from its cold-hearted planning to agonizing execution. “ Hurricane Season,” her first novel translated into English and a finalist for the 2020 International Booker Prize, explores the demise of a Veracruz “witch” in a milieu of drugs, violence, porn and other assorted vices. ![]() Steely resolve in the face of violence has been a hallmark of Melchor’s remarkable and still-nascent career. “Once he’d fallen to the floor they cut off his left foot with a machete to see if he was still alive,” she writes, “and since he continued groaning, they poured another can of fuel over him.” In 1996, a man named Rodolfo Soler stood accused of rape and murder, and Melchor relates the townspeople’s vengeance - torturing him and burning him alive - in prose as cool as the events were grotesque. In “ This Is Not Miami,” her new book of not-quite-nonfiction, Fernanda Melchor tells the true story of a lynching in her home of Veracruz, a state on the Gulf Coast of Mexico. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores. ![]()
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