The reader of this book will encounter relatos that refuse to enter into discourse with History with a capital H. At the heart of these texts is not the incidents themselves, but the impact they had on their witnesses. The stories are based on events that really happened .. but in their subjectiveness they go beyond straightforward testimony, homing in on the transformative experience of their protagonists Skillfully translated by Hughes, this is a book that’s as gorgeous as it is dark, and it proves that Melchor is one of the finest writers working today. Absolutely stunning.’ I kinda feel if you are a Melchor fan then this collection of tales or accounts ( relatos in Spanish ) is essential reading. These pieces are set in and around Veracruz, Mexico and they provide a little more social context to Melchor's outstanding novels Hurricane Season and Paradais without quite putting you through the emotional wringer that those books do. 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. 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. “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.” Melchor moves through this world, compelled by macabre and mysterious stories, while always standing a little outside of them. Because of her skepticism, because she investigates, we can glimpse what is behind all this violence—the schemes of the governor, the work of well-connected narcos. This wider perspective also implies that the current violence, the shadowy machinations in high places, will pass or change. By naming actors calling the shots in Veracruz, Melchor also allows us to trace their paths beyond the end of the book. The Zetas have splintered into warring factions, still wildly violent but not the power they once were. The political party of Herrera and Duarte has finally been ousted.

It is, at heart, a ramble through Lviv, accompanied by a motley crew of entertaining characters, with a surreal premise centring on the (fictional) anecdote that Jimi Hendrix’s hand was pilfered by the KGB after his death and brought to Lviv’s famous Lychakiv cemetery. Plot is largely secondary here; it is Kurkov’s sly wit and eccentric imagination that give the novel such zest. Barcode Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from Bookshop.org, who support independent bookshops Last year Andrey Kurkov, a Russian-born author who moved to Kyiv when he was two and has since become one of Ukraine’s most celebrated writers, wrote Diary of an Invasion, a journal from the early months of the war. It is worth reading alongside his novel Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv, which was published in Russian a decade ago and translated in April, and showcases Kurkov’s trademark style of sharp satire and gallows humour. Fernanda Melchor doesn’t do reportage as many know it. What she writes are ‘relatos’, stories based on real incidents that people told the author, personal testimonies and stories based on long interviews. Differently from Svetlana Alexievich (who doesn’t add her own commentary), Melchor crafts tales, some sounding like essays, some others like literary fiction. Horrific, eerie, gut-wrenching, sometimes even supernatural.In this collection Fernanda Melchor does for Veracruz what David Simon does for Baltimore. Through personal stories she manages to paint a broad picture of crime, addiction, violence, ineffective government and prison life in the city.

The social challenge we face is how we support and value those whose memories are impaired. The challenge we face as individuals is how we relate to loved ones who both are, and aren’t, there. Jauhar experienced grief, frustration and rage as his father became increasingly irrational and volatile. His honest writing makes this a painful but important read for anyone who has lost a friend or relative to Alzheimer’s. In a country where corruption runs rampant, where the official story from the police or the government is tainted, inadequate, or missing altogether, This Is Not Miami functions as a counternarrative: Melchor presents a corrective simply by getting close to her subjects and telling their stories one by one, often in their own voices. This Is Not Miami makes clear just how grounded the heightened drama of Hurricane Season and Paradais is. The connections between Melchor’s fiction and nonfiction go beyond the subject matter—poverty and superstition, misogyny and sexual violence—and include how a story can be corrupted as it passes from person to person.’ Don’t get too hung up on what exactly This Is Not Miamiis, though, and you’ll find its world filthy, disquieting and compulsive.’ In the early nineties, Playa del Muerto, or Dead Man’s Beach, was little more than a strip of greyish sand located in the city of Boca del Río, a city in the municipality of the same name, just south of Veracruz. Its scorching dunes were covered in thorny shrubs, which were littered with rotten branches and plastic bottles that the river dragged down from the mountains when the waters were high. It wasn’t a busy or particularly pretty beach (if any of the beaches in this part of the Gulf of Mexico can said to be truly pretty) and there were times – especially during high tide or storms – when the sand would disappear entirely and not even the breakwaters could prevent the waves from crashing onto the highway connecting the two cities.

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.’