From Macondo to McOndo: A Spatial Analysis of Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season

Abstract

The novel Hurricane Season (2017) by Fernanda Melchor addresses the violence of contemporary Mexico by constructing a rich and complex spaces that evoke the literary codes of crime fiction, while enabling a rich dialogue with the best Latin American novelistic tradition. Set in the fictional region of La Matosa, the work constructs a social universe rich in references and interpretive possibilities. In addition to offering a crude portrait of violence in contemporary Mexico, La Matosa engages in a dialogue with well-known fictional spaces such as Gabriel García Márquez’s Macondo, Juan Carlos Onetti’s Santa María, and José Donoso’s Estación El Olivo. At the same time, the space in Melchor’s novel is rich in intertextual references from mass culture, which also enables a dialogue with what Chileans Alberto Fuguet and Sergio Gómez once defined as McOndo. This paper analyzes Fernanda Melchor’s novel from its proximity to the crime novel in general and from its proximity to some of the best fictions of the last century. Finally, the text also analyzes La Matosoa as an allegorical representation of the failure of globalization and multiculturalism in Latin America.