Author Fernanda Melchor has been awarded with the International prize for literature. In a DW Interview, she tells of the struggle for Survival and faith in Mexico.
“Season of storms”, in 2017, in Mexico, in the Original as “Temporada de huracanes” was published, takes place in a world full of violence and superstition. La Matosa, the village in the dry Coast is the hinterland of Veracruz, the murder of a woman known to all as “witch,” leads to a lot of voices told of Sodom and Gomorrah.
DW: What message was it that brought you to research the material for your novel?
Fernanda Melchor: After my journalism studies, I worked in Veracruz in the public Relations office of my University. There I read every day in the local Newspapers all the reports on violent crimes in this area. From 2009 to 2013, it was reported on many crimes of passion, or of a mistaken idea of love. And then I saw this message about a woman who had been found in a small village dead in the channel.
The Journalist wrote that this crime was motivated by witchcraft. It read, as that would be something completely Self-evident. The murderer had killed the woman because she wanted to bring him through witchcraft to fall back in love with you. This Information took me prisoner and would not let me go. I had to write about the history behind this crime.
They had intended from the outset to a novel?
Actually, I wanted to investigate on the spot, but in these small villages, the Narcos, hid themselves, to their drugs to handle trade. I would be instantly noticed, if I had it as a question. I didn’t want to get in danger. So I consoled myself that I could tell something just as interesting, if I live myself in the inner of the persons who had committed this crime, in fictional Form-shifted.
Shopping street of a Mexican town
You have written about violence against women, women in a life of poverty, perverse sexuality and faith is caught. The extent to which it reflects the reality of Mexican society?
The Mexican society is very divers. But it is true that there is a perverse inequality, which leads to a really dark and dangerous conditions and crime caused. I wanted nothing more than to show what can happen in a very small place that is forgotten by the state and the society. What happens to people, no one cares.
Mexico is in your perception on the way into the abyss?
I would like to draw a more optimistic picture. So much is going wrong in Mexico, and especially, how grossly unfair the wealth is distributed. Millions of people have nothing, many young people have no future, because they don’t get the opportunity to escape their Plight.
Where to stay love and friendship in your novel? There is no room for empathy?
In the fictional village of La Matosa, there is definitely love and friendship, but the characters of my novel are trapped in a vicious circle. Each of these protagonists is in search of love, but because they were never brought what we don’t know what love is. You confuse it with greed, gratitude, or Desire. It’s hard to find love when you lose it is about to drown, just about, everything, even the own mental health. I think you confuse everything, but I have held a “season of storms” was a novel about love.
The people who represent the state, the police, a social worker, a politician, are either brutal, cruel or corrupt. Where is the state?
He is absent, like in so many ways in Mexico. If, for example, a woman in Mexico, or sexually abused and raped, and she wants to bring this to court, it means that you will be made a second Time to the victims. Mexico has the highest Rate of teenage pregnancies in the world. There is no right to abortion. You can leave a maximum of in Mexico City to make, but then you have paid yourself for that. In the figure, the 13-year-old Norma, I wanted to tell about it.
Prostitution in Mexico
You can tell in a very quick rhythm and we follow the thoughts and images in the minds of its protagonists without ever having to pause. You give the extremely vulgar language of her characters in a most artful way. How have you found your narrative perspective, and this breathless language?
I think three quarters of my work on this novel was to find this voice. When I started writing, I heard with time the voices of the different characters told me their story. But I didn’t want the book would be only a collection of Stuff, there should be a unit. That is why a friend advised me at just the right Moment to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ “The autumn of the Patriarch”. A book, a narrative perspective has, which was what I was looking for, very close. So I tried to find a narrative voice that is at the same time should be in figures and outside of them. And, there is an alternating sequence of votes, which told their story – and as in the game Chinese whispers the story changes every Time.
There is much in her book of sorcery and magical phenomena in the speech, but it is not a novel of magic realism. Would not have fit really well?
I think it was a Mexican Journalist who said to me, “write a nightmarish realism.” I am, of course, grew up with García Márquez, and I’ve read plenty of horror stories, Stephen king novels, for example. I myself don’t believe in supernatural things, but I am aware that many people in Mexico believe, especially in the area of Veracruz, in spiritual things, or UFOs.
I wanted to give this strange Form of spirituality, which I find very interesting, in my novel again. The described rituals are in fact the witches in Veracruz.
As was recorded in her novel in Mexico?
Very good, especially of young people. And this is something Special, because that means that he is linked to something that touched the young people. For a literary book, it has sold 15,000 copies so far, very good.
For journalists living in Mexico is often dangerous, there were a lot of journalists ‘ murders. You sometimes have to be afraid of?
I no longer work as a journalist, and writing books is not so dangerous, because it is much less in the centre of the attention as an investigative reporter. I believe, therefore, that I, aside from the everyday danger with the all of the citizens live in Mexico, am in security.
What is the International prize for literature mean to you?
I feel really honored and am grateful. When I learned that “season, the hurricanes should be translated into German, I was wondering how that would work. Then the publisher told me that Angelica Ammar is an excellent Translator and I could rely on you.
The award-winning German Translation by Angelica Ammar
In Germany, I feel now less alone. The price means that more people will be interested in my book. And maybe you find a way to bring what happens to the characters in my book, with your own life. Because, let’s be honest, even if you live in a privileged country, it has sometimes problems and is depressed.
To have a book in a single language, is, as you fought alone. Now, with the German Translation, in addition to those in other languages, it seems to me, as I would always have more company.
Fernanda Melchor, born in 1982, in Veracruz, Mexico, worked as a journalist and published stories and reports. “Season of the hurricanes, her second novel is. In 2018, it has been awarded by PEN Mexico for their outstanding literary and journalistic performance. In 2019, she received the Anna-Seghers-award. 18. June 2019 were you and your German Translator Angelica Ammar honored by the Berlin house of the cultures of the world with the International prize for literature.
Fernanda Melchor: season of the hurricanes. Roman. From Spanish by Angelica Ammar. Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 2019. 240 pages
The interview was conducted by Sabine Peschel.