A Sangre Fría: Fernanda Melchor, Veracruzano Modernism, & Lyrical Slang
European Review of Books
“Fernanda Melchor’s prose hits you square in the face. «If he regretted anything it was not having had the balls to kill them all: that prick Luismi, and, while he was at it, the hobbling loudmouth cunt Munra, and then get the hell out of that stinking, fag-infested town», the narrator says of the character Brando towards the end of Temporada de Huracanes (2017). The novel appeared in English as Hurricane Season in 2020, translated by Sophie Hughes, after more than eight reprints in its original Spanish. (I remember seeing passengers in the women-only cars of the Mexico City metro reading it almost daily.) Its rich, often aggressive language is a heightened form of Mexican quotidian speech, always vivid and very often vulgar.“
European Review of Books
“Fernanda Melchor’s prose hits you square in the face. «If he regretted anything it was not having had the balls to kill them all: that prick Luismi, and, while he was at it, the hobbling loudmouth cunt Munra, and then get the hell out of that stinking, fag-infested town», the narrator says of the character Brando towards the end of Temporada de Huracanes (2017). The novel appeared in English as Hurricane Season in 2020, translated by Sophie Hughes, after more than eight reprints in its original Spanish. (I remember seeing passengers in the women-only cars of the Mexico City metro reading it almost daily.) Its rich, often aggressive language is a heightened form of Mexican quotidian speech, always vivid and very often vulgar.“
illustration: Patrick Doan / ERB