From the semiotics of pet iguanas to the disillusionment of mariachi singers, Villoro reveals the deep dissatisfactions and absurdities of life in Mexico and its carnivalesque capital. We encounter a border trucker making a movie about illegal migrants, a cuckolded football superstar, and a gluten-free American journalist seeking the authentic Mexican experience. A master of the post-modern narrative, and his stories are a semiotic theme park where both Free Willy and Baudrillard find their place.
Villoro gives us contemporary Mexico through a complex interplay of culture and character psychology in the most surprising, fresh and humorous ways.
AUTHOR: Juan Villoro is Mexico’s most prolific, prize-winning author, playwright, journalist and screenwriter. His books have been translated into multiple languages; he has received the Herralde award in Spain for his novel El Testigo, the Antonin Artaud award in France for Los Culpables, and his novel, Arrecife was recently short-listed for the Rezzori Prize in Italy. This is his first book to be translated into English. He lives in Mexico City and is a visiting lecturer at Harvard and Princeton Universities. Translator, Kimi Traube’s translations have been appeared in Bomb Magazine, Powderkeg, and the Bridge Series at McNally Jackson. She has an MFA in Fiction and Literary Translation from Columbia University. SELLING POINTS: . Villoro is an invited speaker at the London Book Fair (Mexico is also the market focus nation) . This collection is the winner of the Antonin Artaud Prize in France . This is Villoro’s first book to be translated into English . Stories from this collection already published in venues such as N+1 and BOMB . Villoro is a literary star in Mexico and has taught at Princeton and Harvard, where he often guest lectures . Villoro was short-listed in 2014 for Rezzori Prize in Italy alongside George Saunders and Edward St Aubyn