Fernanda Melchor’s novel Hurricane Season was a runaway critical success, a New York Times notable book of 2020, and won the 2021 Queen Sofia Translation Prize. For this and her latest novel Paradais, Melchor has been praised for her dazzling technical prowess, perfect pitch for orality, and unsparing depiction of Mexico’s explosive social inequity.

Sophie Hughes is the literary translator tasked with rendering Melchor’s “exceptional gift for ventriloquism” and the controlled rage of her voice in English. In this lecture and conversation, translator and reader come together to discuss boldness and artistic bravery in their respective literary roles. This translation lecture is given in the name of the pre-eminent translator whose peerless work rendering French, Danish and German literature into English ranges from Asterix to Austerlitz. ​In conversation with Chris Power.