Fernanda Melchor, author extraordinaire, goes literary journalism: This collection assembles thirteen non-fiction texts, mostly written between 2002 and 2011, that paint a vivid picture of Melchor's hometown of Veracruz, a port city on the Gulf of Mexico. In her foreword, she ponders the relation between fiction and non-fiction, especially regarding framing and perspectives, and what terms, in English and Spanish, try to encompass different approaches to the circumstance that all writing is ultimately subjective, that objectivity is a goal one might strife for, but that it is unattainable due to our imperfect human nature (which can also be an advantage, if the writer is aware of their biases and employs intelligent literary techniques). Be the theoretical framework as it may - I recently spent quite some time puzzling over aspects of literary journalism, so I'm quite over the topic at the moment - this collection shines with its intense descriptions and memorable scenes that chronicle the stories Veracruz consists of.

Starting off with a phenomenal text about young Fernanda who believes a drug trafficking plane to be a UFO during the time of a solar eclipse, the stories branch out in all directions: We get a fantastic text about refugees who hid on a ship and got off in Veracruz because they mistook it as Miami (hence the title), which leads to an unexpected moral conundrum. There's also an absorbing text about Evangelina Tejera Bosada, the former carnival queen of Veracruz who ended up killing her two young children. I also learnt about the lynching of Rodolfo Soler, a man the police didn't bring to justice and who, in a particularly gruesome act of vigilantism, was then burned alive by citizens of Veracruz. Femicides also play a crucial role, like that of Nayeli Reyes Santos, a federal judiciary who was abducted and dismembered by a drug cartel.

While I didn't find all texts equally captivating - I particularly liked the first half better than the second -, this is an outstanding portrayal of a specific place in a specific time, that highlights the ambivalence of a society, gives voice to victims and investigates the seedier, messier dynamics below the surface. As readers of Melchor know, she is a specialist when it comes to showing and pondering human cruelty, and this collection is no exception. What a great writer!

Fernanda Melchor is one of our most exciting living writers, and I’m so glad to have been able to read this astounding collection of non fiction. She will be one to watch, as her career evolves.

This is Not Miami – Fernanda Melchor (translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes)

The city cannot tell its own story, or any story at all. As Sartre pointed out, reality does not tell stories; that is the job of language and memory.

My thanks to @fitzcarraldoeditions and @netgalley for my copy of this book – look out for it when it’s published on 10th May.

“Relatos” doesn’t translate well into English – “tales” or “accounts” doesn’t quite do the job. What Melchor has done in this book is try to tell the stories as honestly as possible, using the obliqueness inherent in language to the stories’ advantage (the author’s own words, more or less). What we get, therefore, is a collection of narrative non-fiction based around the Mexican city of Veracruz, all of it exploring the dark underbelly of human nature and Mexican society.

If you’ve read “Hurricane Season” or “Paradais” then the tone will be familiar, with aspects of Mexican cartels, machismo, violence against women, murder, all covered to certain extents, though none as much as the drug trade. It’s almost a character, sinking its teeth into every character and situation in the town, or at least lurking in the background. Locals are ruled by it, seduced by it, killed by it.

It's honestly a fantastic collection -Melchor is a fantastic writer, one with an ear for dialogue and an eye for detail, both of which lead to her creating incredibly engaging pieces. Almost all of them could have been extended, teased out into longer pieces, and the brevity of some of the articles here might leave many readers wanting more. For me, they were close to perfect.

If you can handle the darkness, then get your hands on this as soon as you can. An easy recommendation from me.

Have you read any Melchor? What did you think?

It’s been days since I finished This Is Not Miami and I still think about it. No writer has excited me this much — I do not refrain from calling her the freshest voice in literary fiction right now, an adjective always used liberally. Cronicás are not just third page news or mere reportage. It is as if you are watching a docu-fiction like Tarnation, perfectly blending fact and fiction.

Another brilliant book by Fernanda Melchor, a gorgeous set of essays which reads very much like her fiction. I will read everything by this author.

Searing yet humane, filled with violence and brutality, fear and unquenchable hope that life could be different, Melchor has pulled together a series of relatos ('tales', 'accounts') that build up to a portrait of Veracruz and its inhabitants.

Ravaged by the drug trade, failed by a government and system where justice and social support are non existent, crippled by institutionalised corruption and fear, living amidst shootouts on the street - and yet there are still moments of humanity and grace to be found: the dock-worker who gives a half-drowned refugee his last piece of bread, for example.

It's hard to understand where this refusal to succumb to despair comes from: these stories depict prison life, poverty, casual cruelties where women kill and mutilate their children, where a rapist is lynched by the family of his victim, a terrifying story of a haunted house - and yet somewhere there is a resistance to simply folding and giving up under the weight of so much misery and desolation.

The writing is never ostentatious, never dramatic or 'look at me' even when describing outrageous events (and a shout-out to Sophie Hughes for such a natural translation) but this is powerful stuff.

File this alongside other contemporary Latin American women authors who are combining intense, engaging, politicised and hard-hitting writing with a sense of literature as itself a form of humanism and resistance.

"This is Not Miami" is an intriguing little book, which at first seems a much milder, politer cousin to Fernardna Melchor's celebrated, wild and overwhelming Hurricane Season, but gradually the familial traits reveal themselves in these explorations of Mexico. Like so many fascinating books, 'This is Not Miami' is neither fiction nor non-fiction but an amalgam, containing what Melchor in her preface calls 'relatos', narratives which are journalistic but which also drawn on the possibilities of fictions.. And the best relatos here - the Exorcist-inflected "The House on El Estero" , the title story, and the final story Veracruz with a Zed for Zeta - have the remarkable intensity of Melchor's fiction. Some of the other stories are more slight, but the collection as a whole more than pulls its weight. As the narrator says of Jorge in 'The House on El Elestro': '

Jorge's way of telling stories fascinated me: he wove together snippets of dialogue, gestures and his own views, both past and present. A typical Veracruz guy, I though, captivated; a raconteur of manly exploits, trained within a culture that mocks the written word and dismisses the archive, preferring testimony, oral and dramatic accounts - the joyful art of conversing'.

'This is No Miami' both enacts and subverts this approach to narrative and that's where their fascination lies. Fitzcarraldo has done it again.

3.5 rounded up

Fernanda Melchor's third publication in English (and third with the excellent Fitzacarraldo Editions) is something of a departure from the preceding books - Hurricane Season and Paradais) in that it is a collection of reportage and narrative non-fiction pieces dating to around 2011, as opposed to fiction. However there is no doubt that it has thematic similarities with her previous books in that it focuses on the darker, more troubling side of humanity and society.

The essays included in this collection are almost perfectly formed miniature portraits of people and events, largely centred around her hometown of Veracruz, Mexico. My main criticism is that I finished almost every piece wanting more due to their brevity (except for perhaps the final piece which was small but perfectly formed, and the most memorable for this reader). In spite of this minor criticism I would still recommend picking this collection up if you have enjoyed Melchor's previous writing or if you're a fan of narrative non-fiction.

Credit too to Sophie Hughes, whose translation was impeccable (as ever).