Juan Villoro

Mexican writer and journalist

Juan Antonio Villoro Ruiz (born 24 September 1956, in Mexico City) is a Mexican writer and journalist and the son of philosopher Luis Villoro. He has been well known among intellectual circles in Mexico, Latin America and Spain for years, but his success among a wider readership has grown since receiving the Herralde Prize for his novel El testigo.

Juan Villoro received his bachelor's degree in Sociology from the Metropolitan Autonomous University, Iztapalapa campus. He was also part of a short story workshop conducted by Guatemalan writer Augusto Monterroso. As a rock music 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 attaché to Berlin in the then German Democratic Republic. For three decades, Villoro 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 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. In 2011, Villoro appeared in the film production Guerrero 12, a feature length documentary examining football fandom passion. The film is directed by Miguel A. Reina, who was also responsible for the Sundance film Un aliado en el tiempo. In 2018 he received Chile's Manuel Rojas Ibero American Narrative Award.

Since he was a child, Villoro has been fond of football. He is a fan of Barcelona, influenced by the fact that his father is from the region. Villoro played in the lower divisions Pumas of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, but left the team when he was 16. When he began writing about football, he described himself as being a fan of being a fan. He has consistently written chronicles, a genre that he defines as the platypus of prose, due to the large number of varying influences that chronicles can require. He began writing theater when he was 50 years old. As a rock music fan, Villoro collaborated with Mexican band Café Tacuba on the songs "Sashimi (Corte fino)" and "Laberinto" for the film Vivir mata, directed by Nicolás Echevarría. Villoro is also a professor at the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation for New Iberoamerican Journalism and was a member of the dean's council for the Gabriel García Márquez Prize for Journalism, which meets annually in Medellín.