Nominada para el Man Booker Internacional 2022

Fernanda Melchor explora la violencia y la desigualdad en esta novela brutal. Lo hace con una destreza tecnica deslumbrante, oido absoluto para la oralidad y precision de neurocirujana para la crueldad. Paradais es un breve e inexorable descenso al infierno . -Mariana Enriquez

En un conjunto residencial de lujo, dos adolescentes inadaptados se reunen por las noches para embriagarse a escondidas y compartir sus descabelladas fantasias. Franco Andrade, obeso y solitario, adicto a la pornografia, suena con seducir a la vecina de al lado- una atractiva mujer casada, madre de familia-, por quien ha desarrollado una obsesion malsana; mientras que Polo, su reacio companero, fantasea con renunciar a su agobiante empleo como jardinero del exclusivo fraccionamiento y huir de su casa, de su pueblo infestado de narcos, y del yugo de su dominante madre. Ante la imposibilidad de conseguir lo que cada uno cree merecer, Franco y Polo maquinaran un plan tan pueril como macabro.

Paradais, escrita por Fernanda Melchor, una de las escritoras mexicanas mas destacadas de la actualidad, explora la facilidad con la que el deseo puede convertirse en obsesion y, mas aun, en violencia, al tiempo que narra la alianza entre los polos opuestos de la sociedad mexicana contemporanea.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

Longlisted for the 2022 International Man Booker Prize

Fernanda Melchor explores violence and inequity in this brutal novel. She does it with dazzling technical prowess, a perfect pitch for orality, and a neurosurgeon’s precision for cruelty. Paradais is a short inexorable descent into Hell. -Mariana Enriquez

In a luxurious residential complex, two outcast teenagers sneak at night to get drunk and share their outrageous fantasies. Franco Andrade, a fat and lonely porn addict, dreams of seducing his next-door neighbor, an attractive wife and mother for whom he has developed an unwholesome obsession. Polo, his reluctant sidekick, fantasizes about quitting his back-breaking job as a gardener in this exclusive complex and running away from home, leaving their narco-infested town and his overbearing mother’s grip behind. Faced with the impossibility of getting what they both believe they deserve; Franco and Polo will come up with a plan that is every bit as childish as it is macabre.

Written by Fernanda Melchor, one of the most outstanding Mexican writers of today, Paradais explores how easily desire can turn into obsession, and then further into violence, all the while describing the alliance between opposite sides of contemporary Mexican society.