Fernanda Melchor is a Mexican author. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Pen Club Prize for Journalistic and Literary Excellence, 2018 and the Anna Seghers-Preis, 2019. Her novel Hurricane Season (Temporada de Huracanes) paints a portrait of a Mexican village divided by superstition, violence and machismo. The witch is dead, and through rumour and hearsay we might learn who killed her. Hurricane Season will be available in the UK from 19 February 2020. It is translated by Sophie Hughes and published by Fitzcarraldo Editions. This interview has been translated from Spanish.
Elizabeth Sulis Kim Can you tell us a little bit about the real event that inspired this book?
Fernanda Melchor A few years ago, in a newspaper from Veracruz, where I was born, I read an article about a body that was found in an irrigation canal. The body, according to the article, belonged to a sorcerer from a nearby town, and the suspects detained by the police had killed him as self-defence against his spells. I was shocked, especially due to the fact that in the 21st Century, neither the journalist, nor the police, nor the witnesses had even the shadow of a doubt that sorcery could be a justifiable motive for murder. And unsurprisingly, this piqued my curiosity and I decided to do research on the whole story. First, I thought I wanted to write a non-fiction novel, a literary reportage about the crime in the manner of In Cold Blood or The Executioner’s Song, but ultimately I thought it would be more interesting to explore this story and its context through fiction.
ESK To the villagers of the imaginary town La Matosa, the various witches and mujeres malas of Mexican folklore, e.g. la Llorona, become conflated. To what extent is this true in Mexico today?
FM Mexico is a huge country; there are several and very different Mexicos within it. In this novel I was interested in writing about the beliefs and practices that exist in a very specific region, the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. There is a spirituality, of a Caribbean nature, with fascinating rituals, that emerged from the blend of European, African, and indigenous religions. I wanted to talked to talk about these practices and beliefs in the novel, but not with an ethnographic or sociological perspective, but by telling a story. I couldn’t say that what happens in Temporada de Huracanes is real. Rather, it plays with the elements of a reality that I know very well.
ESK Why do you think women, in particular, are regarded with so much fear?
FM I think that women have a creative power that men envy. And I don’t only mean their potential for motherhood, but a vital and powerful force that is different from the male counterpart.
ESK What research did you do?
FM Before I start to write a novel, I tend to read a lot of fiction as a way of analysing structures that I find interesting or suitable for the project. For several years, I’ve been keeping a file where I save data, testimonies, and stories about topics that interest me and that I later use in my novels. I didn’t really do fieldwork; it’s more of an exercise of the imagination.
ESK Why did you tell this story from the perspective of the villagers who are liable to hearsay, gossip and speculation regarding the witch and the witch’s murderer? Why are the witches, mother and daughter, unable to define themselves?
FM On the one hand, I was interested in incorporating the narrative and poetic structures of gossip and rumours in this novel: how an event can spark conversations that are like ripples when an object falls into the water. On the other hand, we don’t know what’s going on in the witch’s mind because we don’t know what’s in the murderer’s mind either. Silence is a very important literary device.
ESK Are herbalists, or those who provide alternative therapy, still valued and feared in modern day Mexico?
FM Of course, there’s a very strong belief in spirituality in Mexican cultures, and this implies the use of services by witches, healers, and shamans. Also, herbal medicine is sometimes the only kind of health service that poor people have access to.
ESK What were the main challenges in translating this book to English?
FM Sophie Hughes is a wonderful translator, and she knows Mexican Spanish very well. We would have to ask her regarding the challenges, but I suppose the main challenge was to make all the insults and curses sound as real as in Spanish.
ESK Finally, which other contemporary Mexican writers should we be reading?
FM I really recommend Among the Lost, Emiliano Monge’s novel.