Juan Villoro

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Juan Villoro (Mexico City, 1956-) is a Mexican writer and journalist. He has been well known among intellectual circles in Mexico, Latin America and Spain for years, but his success among the readers grew since receiving the Herralde prize for his novel El testigo.

[edit] Biography

Juan Villoro received his bachelor's degree in sociology from the Metropolitan Autonomous University, Iztapalapa campus. As a rock fan, he was the dj for the radio program "El lado oscuro de la luna" (the Spanish translation of The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd from 1977 until 1981. He was then made the cultural attache to Berlin in the then German Democratic Republic.

For three decades he has produced a steady output of articles for various Mexican periodicals, concentrating in such areas as sports, rock, cinema, literature and travel. Palmeras de la brisa rapida: un viaje a Yucatán ("Palm Trees of the Rapid Breeze: A Journey to Yucatan") 1989 is an account, at once humorous and intellectual, of his travels in a part of Mexico known for its Mayan culture. His first novel was El disparo de argón ("The Shot of Argon"), published in 1991. Los once de la tribu ("The Eleven of the Tribe"), published in 1995, collects many of his best short, non-fiction essays and interviews. The title refers to the number of people on an international football team. He covers a wide range of topics, including Andy Warhol, the Rolling Stones, the television series Dallas, the absurdities of publishing children's literature in the United States and an interview with Jane Fonda.