We’re delighted to be welcoming Fernanda Melchor to Manchester as part of her UK tour to promote her incredible new book PARADAIS. Fernanda will be in conversation with Xavier Aldana Reyes.

About the book:

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 neighbor – an attractive married woman and mother – while Polo dreams about quitting his gruelling job as a gardener within the gated community and fleeing his overbearing mother and their narco-controlled village. Each facing the impossibility of getting what he thinks he deserves, Franco and Polo hatch a mindless and macabre scheme. Written in a chilling torrent of prose by one of our most thrilling new writers, Paradais explores the explosive fragility of Mexican society – fractured by issues of race, class and violence – and how the myths, desires, and hardships of teenagers can tear life apart at the seams.

Translated by Sophie Hughes.

About the author:

Born in Veracruz, Mexico, in 1982, Fernanda Melchor is ‘one of Mexico’s most exciting new voices’ (Guardian). Her novel Hurricane Season was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, longlisted for the National Book Award, and as a New York Times Notable Book.

Xavier Aldana Reyes is Reader in English Literature and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University and co-lead of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies. He has edited Horror: A Literary History for British Library Publishing, along with collections of stories by Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson and H. P. Lovecraft.

Doors: 18.30, event starts: 18.45

Tickets are £3.00 or free when purchasing a copy of the book. PARADAIS will also be available to purchase on the night and Fernanda will be signing copies after the talk. If you would like a signed copy but cannot make the event, please contact us on 0161 274 3331 or manchester@blackwell.co.uk and we can arrange this for you.