Juan Villoro is one of the best living writers today. Reading Juan Villoro is like cycling out of the city to the mountains and gulping down 200ml of dewy spring air. Reading Juan Villoro is like working 6 days a week huffing carbon monoxide then taking a paddle board out to the sea and feeling cold sea water on your bare skin. Reading Juan Villoro is like feeling your lover's warmth for the first time and they don't move away.
Juan Villoro was born into privilege, Mexico 1958. His prose is sparse, witty and concise. I don't understand what his stories are about, I understand they are masterworks in the format. They're short, funny and evocative. He is a master of polemics, satire and exaggeration to humourous effect. Maybe we can attribute the quality of the English prose to Kimi Traube's wonderful translation. A big thank you from all of us who speak broken Spanish.
The Guilty (t. Kimi Traube) contains 7 of his short stories. They are filled with humour brevity and inseparable from Mexico. In one, he writes about a futbol player who plays for three Chinese twins running a contraband toy operation in Mexicali (it was presumptuous of him, observes the protagonist, to assume they were trafficking drugs). In another, it's a mariachi who kisses a man on screen, shoots to fame because of his fake giant member, and gets cuckolded by the owner of the real giant member. They are short and sweet and bittersweet. I believe Villoro is one of the top 3 living short story writers today.