Juan Villoro was born in Mexico City in 1956. He was cultural attaché at the Mexican embassy in the then Democratic Republic of Germany and has worked on many magazines and newspapers. He was also editor in chief of Pauta and editor of La Jornada Semanal, arts supplement of the newspaper La Jornada, from 1995 to 1998.
He now teaches literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and is a visiting lecturer at the universities of Princeton, Yale, Boston and Pompeu i Fabra in Barcelona. He writes regularly for the newspapers La Jornada (Mexico) and El País (Spain) and for publications such as Letras Libres, Proceso, Nexos and Reforma.
An award-winning writer of fiction, essays and children’s books and translator of major works from German and English, Juan Villoro is gaining recognition as one of the most important contemporary Latin American writers.