Paradais

'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 * ‘Fernanda Melchor explores violence and inequity in this brutal novel. She does it with dazzling technical prowess, a perfect pitch for orality, and a neurosurgeon’s precision for cruelty. Paradais is a short inexorable descent into Hell.’ * Mariana Enríquez * 'The ‘elemental cry’ of Ms. Melchor’s writing voice, a composite of anger and anguish, is entirely her own.' * Wall Street Journal * ‘Melchor evokes the stories of Flannery O’Connor, or Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings. Impressive.’ * New York Times * ‘Melchor’s feverish prose is fierce and all-consuming...The experience of reading this short book is both shocking and energising, but it’s worth noting that, while disconcerting, Melchor’s furious scrutiny of both misogyny and capitalism is never gratuitous.’ * Readings Monthly * 'Paradais explores the explosive nature of Mexico's brittle society, fractured by issues of race, class and violence and confronts us with teenagers whose desires and hardships can tear life apart.’ * The Paperback Bookshop * ‘Time spent with her writing leaves no doubt: the unholy noise she creates is the work of someone who knows exactly which notes to hit...Melchor’s determination to show rather than judge, even amid mounting horror, preserves her characters’ humanity...“I wanted to write a novel that the reader just couldn’t let go [of]”, Melchor said of Hurricane Season. She succeeded, and now she’s done it again.’ * Guardian * ‘[Melchor’s] long, fevered sentences – which carry off daredevil moves, such as shifting tense and viewpoint from one clause to the next – combine with the emotional and physical violence of the story to produce a cacophonous effect. But time spent with her writing leaves no doubt: the unholy noise she creates is the work of someone who knows exactly which notes to hit.’ * Chris Power, Guardian * ‘Paradais is a torrent of piss and shit and blood and semen, but for all its visceral realism it also possesses a mythic quality. It’s all here: Elysium, the gates of Hades, and an explorer-hero whose great moment results only in him finding himself back where he started.’ * Review 31 * ‘Melchor uses shock to lay bare issues of classism, misogyny, and the ravages of child abuse. Her prose, ably translated by Hughes, is dizzying but effective; it’s as if she’s holding the reader’s head and daring them to look away from the social problems she brings to light. This might be a deeply disconcerting novel, but it’s also a brave one. A fever dream that's as hard to read as it is brilliant.’ * Kirkus * ‘Melchor delivers us to her fool’s paradise with merciless precision, stripped of narrative luxuries like vengeance or confession, and instead debarking for a land where violence is simply a descriptive feature.’ * James Butler-Gruett, Cardiff Review * ‘We’re immediately drawn into [Melchor’s] world…[with] these running, rolling sentences…The writing just pulls you through, beginning to end.’ * RNZ Nine to Noon * 'A breathless, powerful read…It’s confronting. It’s awful. It’s intelligent. It’s hard to look away. I think it’s well worth it.’ * ABC RN Bookshelf * 'Melchor is an incredibly gifted writer.’ * New York Times * ‘Melchor is a masterful writer. Her sentences are long yet breathless, and she will make your heart race. She skilfully captures class, violence, misogyny and intrusive thoughts with incredible detail, and offers a glimpse into inner worlds you might not otherwise see.’ * Big Issue * ‘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 * ‘Brilliant, sinewy, streetwise...Melchor’s telling is psychologically revealing, finding ever deeper reservoirs of rage and dread in its characters.’ * LA Times * ‘Fernanda Melchor is one of my favorite writers alive, and her latest novel, Paradais, translated by Sophie Hughes, is a slim, grotesque, and often breathless cataclysm, a story of contemporary moral decay that I truly could not put down.’ * The White Review *