Paradais - Reading Guide
Discover more about the novel that was written to show ‘that violence is not something that’s exclusively tied to misery or poverty, but something that could also be born in the heart of “paradise”’.
Written in a chilling torrent of prose by one of Mexico’s most thrilling new writers, Paradais explores the explosive fragility of Mexican society. Translated by Sophie Hughes.
Inside a luxury housing complex, two misfit teenagers sneak around and get drunk. Franco Andrade, lonely, overweight, and addicted to porn, obsessively fantasizes about seducing his neighbour - an attractive married woman and mother. Meanwhile Polo, the community’s gardener, dreams about quitting his gruelling job and fleeing his overbearing mother and their narco-controlled village. As each face the impossibility of getting what they think they deserve, together Franco and Polo hatch a mindless and macabre scheme.
Fernanda Melchor
About the Author
Fernanda Melchor has been nominated twice for the International Booker Prize - longlisted in 2022 and shortlisted in 2020. She born in Veracruz, Mexico, in 1982, is a writer and journalist who lives and works in Puebla.
Sophie Hughes
About the Translator
Sophie Hughes was born in Chertsey, UK, in June 1986.I wanted to explore the fact that violence is not something that’s exclusively tied to misery or poverty, but something that could also be born in the heart of “paradise”
— Fernanda Melchor, author of Paradais
Other nominated books by Fernanda Melchor
Fernanda Melchor’s formidable portrait of Mexico and its demons, written with a brutal lyricism that is as affecting as it is enthralling. Translated by Sophie Hughes.
Other nominated books by Sophie Hughes
Fernanda Melchor’s formidable portrait of Mexico and its demons, written with a brutal lyricism that is as affecting as it is enthralling. Translated by Sophie Hughes.
A masterpiece of metafiction, Mac and His Problem is Enrique Vila-Matas’s testament to the power and playfulness of great literature. Translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Sophie Hughes.
Intense, intelligent and extraordinarily sensitive, Alia Trabucco Zerán’s remarkable debut presents a new way to count the cost of generational trauma. Translated by Sophie Hughes.
