Down the Rabbit Hole
Juan Pablo Villalobos, Rosalind Harvey (translation), Adam Thirlwell (introduction)Tochtli lives in a palace. He loves hats, samurai, guillotines, & dictionaries, & 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, & Tochtli is growing up in a luxury hideout that he shares with hit men, prostitutes, dealers, servants, & the odd corrupt politician or two.
Long-listed for The Guardian First Book Award, Down the Rabbit Hole, a masterful & darkly comic first novel, is the chronicle of a delirious journey to grant a child's wish.
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Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1973. He’s the author of Down the Rabbit Hole (2011), Quesadillas (2013) & I'll Sell You a Dog (2016). His novels have been translated into fifteen languages. He writes for several publications including Letras Libres, Gatopardo, Granta & the English Pen blog, & translates Brazilian literature into Spanish. He lived in Barcelona for several years, then moved to Brazil, & is now back in Spain. He is married with two Mexican-Brazilian-Italian-Catalan children.