Juan Pablo Villalobos – författare

For this striking, stripped-down account of youth immigration, Villalobos interviewed teens at various stages of the immigration process to illustrate their stories - the physical and emotional difficulties of their travels.He then changed certain elements of these stories in order to protect the children's identities. Each chapter brings forth the voice of one young immigrant's experience, from crossing the Mexican desert to gang violence to the 'freezers' at ICE detention centres.Together, these teen voices paint a vivid and thought-provoking picture of US-Central American immigration and the American refugee crisis, which will resonate with young readers, educators, and fans of his adult fiction alike.

Long before he was the taco seller whose ‘Gringo Dog’ recipe made him famous throughout Mexico City, our hero was an aspiring artist: an artist, that is, till his would-be girlfriend was stolen by Diego Rivera, and his dreams snuffed out by his hypochondriac mother. Now our hero is resident in a retirement home, where fending off boredom is far more gruelling than making tacos. Plagued by the literary salon that bumps about his building’s lobby and haunted by the self-pitying ghost of a neglected artist, Villalobos’ old man can’t help but misbehave. He antagonises his neighbours, tortures American missionaries with passages from Adorno, flirts with the revolutionary greengrocer, and in short does everything that can be done to fend off the boredom of retirement and old age . . . while still holding a beer. A delicious take-down of pretensions to cultural posterity, I’ll Sell You a Dog is a comic novel whose absurd inventions, scurrilous antics and oddball characters are vintage Villalobos.

Winner of the 2016 Herralde Prize“I don’t expect anyone to believe me,” warns the narrator of this novel, a Mexican student called Juan Pablo Villalobos. He is about to fly to Barcelona on a scholarship when he’s kidnapped in a bookshop and whisked away by thugs to a basement. The gangsters are threatening his cousin—a wannabe entrepreneur known to some as “Projects” and to others as “dickhead”—who is gagged and tied to a chair. The thugs say Juan Pablo must work for them. His mission? To make Laia, the daughter of a corrupt politician, fall in love with him. He accepts. . . . though not before the crime boss has forced him at gunpoint into a discussion on the limits of humour in literature. Part campus novel, part gangster thriller, I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me is Villalobos at his best. Exuberantly foul-mouthed and intellectually agile, this hugely entertaining novel finds the light side of difficult subjects—immigration, corruption, family loyalty and love—in a world where the difference between comedy and tragedy depends entirely on who’s telling the joke.Praise for Juan Pablo Villalobos:'Funny, convincing, appalling...a punch-packer.' Ali Smith'Savagely funny.' Lili Wright, New York Times

Juan Pablo Villalobos’s fifth novel adopts a gentle, fable-like tone, approaching the problem of racism from the perspective that any position as idiotic as xenophobia can only be fought with sheer absurdity.In an unnamed city, colonised by an unnamed world power, an immigrant named Gastón makes his living selling exotic vegetables to eateries around the city. He has a dog called Kitten, who’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and a good friend called Max, who’s in a deep depression after being forced to close his restaurant. Meanwhile, Max’s son, Pol, a scientist away on a scientific expedition into the Arctic, can offer little support.Gastón begins a quest, or rather three: he must search for someone to put his dog to sleep humanely; he must find a space in which to open a new restaurant with Max; and he must look into the truth behind the news being sent back by Pol: that human life may be the by-product of an ancient alien attempt at colonisation . . . and those aliens might intend to make a return visit.

Shortlisted for the 2011 Guardian First Book Award and the 2012 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation PrizeTochtli lives in a palace. He loves hats, samurai, guillotines and dictionaries, and what he wants more than anything right now is a new pet for his private zoo: a pygmy hippopotamus from Liberia. But Tochtli is a child whose father is a drug baron on the verge of taking over a powerful cartel, and Tochtli is growing up in a luxury hideout that he shares with hit men, prostitutes, dealers, servants and the odd corrupt politician or two.Down the Rabbit Hole, a masterful and darkly comic first novel, is the chronicle of a delirious journey to grant a child’s wish.

After many peaceful years abroad, JP has returned home to Mexico to visit family and help care for his elderly mother. Instead, however, he finds himself at a bar, his fist inches from the face of Everardo, his sort-of childhood friend. He lands the blow and runs home. But when Everardo turns up dead the next morning, JP soon finds himself blamed for a murder that he (probably) didn't commit. What’s going on? Can Lagos really be more full of drugs, extortion, and fraud than when he left? Why is everyone offering him pills? How's he ever going to pay for his mother's medical treatment? It wasn't even that good a punch!Weaving outright hilarity with wry tenderness, The Past Pursues Us is a fast-paced and funny whodunit that lovingly speaks to the stories we tell ourselves about home: about what changes, what doesn't, and what should.

Wieviele Kakerlaken passen in einen Aufzug? Hilft ­Adorno gegen amerikanische Missionare? Lebt die Revolution? Und vor allem: Was steckt »wirklich« in einem Taco? Fragen über Fragen, die Juan Pablo Villalobos in seinem rasanten Senioren­roman aufs vergnüglichste beantwortet. Nabel der Welt ist ein Wohnhaus im Herzen von Mexico City, wo der ganz normale Wahnsinn der Stadt auf ein paar Etagen zusammenschnurrt. Während der hausinterne Literaturkreis auf dem Flur tagt – unter dem strengen Regiment der rüstigen Francesca –, entspinnt sich auf den oberen Stockwerken irgendetwas zwischen Liebes-, Künstler- und Kriminal­geschichte. Ein großer Spaß, und das ganz ohne Rentner, die aus Fenstern steigen!

Los ensayos de este libro trazan su andar por instantes solitarios, experiencias compartidas y paisajes naturales que nos convidan a seguir las huellas de la imaginación y la escritura, divididos en tres momentos: la quietud, la caminata y la siembra. Selva Almada nos lleva a su retiro semirrural en Argentina, donde la naturaleza y el silencio le dan sentido al entorno y a su relación con las palabras. Juan Pablo Villalobos descubre en un árbol visible desde su ventana en Barcelona un símbolo del paso del tiempo y la resistencia, metáfora de su propia forma de concebir la escritura. Cristina Rivera Garza invita al lector a caminar con ella por los bosques, parques y jardines de Houston, para mostrarnos que Deambular otra vez es un acto de descubrimiento, un encuentro constante con el mundo, la imaginación y el lenguaje.

Barcelona ya no es nuestra. Ni tuya, ni mía. Es del turismo, de la marca, del decorado.En Picadura de Barcelona, Adrià Pujol sale a caminar por las calles de una ciudad que reconoce pero que ya no le pertenece. Pasea entre ruinas vivas: un idioma desgastado, plazas transformadas en escaparates, esquinas ocupadas por lo útil, lo bello y lo rentable. Fuma, observa, se incomoda. Y escribe.Este no es un libro nostálgico de crónica urbana. Es una digresión licérgica y afilada sobre lo que se pierde cuando una ciudad deja de ser vivida para empezar a ser consumida. Entre el ensayo, la autoficción y el monólogo interior, Pujol ofrece una cartografía personal y crítica de la Barcelona que queda cuando se borra la experiencia cotidiana.Con un epílogo de Juan Pablo Villalobos —también caminante, también periférico— que acompaña como una conversación al borde del mapa, esta inyección de realidad nos invita a preguntarnos ¿cuándo fue que la ciudad dejó de ser nuestra?

Cuando era nino, el narrador de esta historia vio jugar a la seleccion brasilena en el estadio Jalisco, durante uno de los partidos del mundial Mexico 70. Como todos los espectadores, quedo fascinado por el talento de los jugadores y conmovido por la esperanza, pues esa tarde la verdeamarela cumplio con la conjuncion de felicidad y belleza que el futbol promete. Con ese recuerdo, crecio pensando que queria ser brasileno y, ya adulto, se mudo a Rio de Janeiro para buscar la alegria en el pais donde los suenos se cumplen. Alla se enamoro de tres mujeres, cambio al Atlas por el Flamengo y llevo una vida tranquila hasta que un dia el chispazo de una idea volvio a encender la ilusion de la aventura. Imagino que crear un equipo que replicara las hazanas de la seleccion brasilena del 70, como una obra de teatro, haria vivir al publico la euforia que el sintio aquella tarde de su infancia en Guadalajara, y que eso seria el negocio de su vida. Busco a los dobles de Pele, Gerson y Jairzinho, y consiguio a un socio que pronto organizo una gira del espectaculo por los pueblos de Jalisco. Viajo a Mexico con sus jugadores-actores, pero su empresa quedo secuestrada por el lavado de dinero: vendieron muchos boletos pero nunca lograron replicar las jugadas.

La Brasil de Pelé, Jairzinho, Tostão o Rivelino maravilló de tal manera en el Mundial de 1970, que a algunos les cambió la vida. Y no es una forma de hablar. Es el caso del narrador de esta novela, un mexicano que se mudó a Río de Janeiro porque de niño había quedado fascinado con aquella selección. Fue el principio del fin. Juan Pablo Villalobos, escritor consagrado, Premio Herralde por No voy a pedirle a nadie que me crea, se calza las botas de fútbol para contar una historia imposible sobre delirios de grandeza y promesas de felicidad. Todo cocinado con la receta habitual delautor: prosa afilada, sentido del humor y giros inesperados. Y las ilustraciones inconfundibles de Julio César Pérez. Que empiece el jogo bonito.

It’s the 1980s in Lagos de Moreno – a town where there are more cows than people, and more priests than cows – and a poor family is struggling to get by. The father, a school teacher, insists on practising and teaching the art of the insult, while the mother prepares hundreds of quesadillas to serve to their numerous progeny: Aristotle, Orestes, Archilochus, Callimachus, Electra, Castor and Pollux. The family witnesses a revolt against the Institutional Revolutionary Party and its umpteenth electoral fraud. This political upheaval is only the beginning of Orestes’ adventures and his uproarious crusade against the boredom of rustic life and the tyranny of his older brother. In Quesadillas Juan Pablo Villalobos serves up a wild banquet. Chock-full of inseminated cows, Polish immigrants, parading pilgrims, alien spacecraft and psychedelic watermelons, almost anything goes in this madcap Mexican satire of politics and class.