Guadalajara Reporter

An author from Guadalajara has found a novel way of viewing Mexico’s endemic drug violence: through the eyes of a child.

Juan Pablo Villalobos is making waves internationally with the release of his debut book, “Down the Rabbit Hole,” which has just earned first place on the First Book award shortlist by British newspaper The Guardian.

A novella of 70 pages, it is a darkly comic and unsettling fable of contemporary narco culture, narrated by the young son of a cartel boss.

The infant protagonist lives an isolated life holed up in the family mansion with his bodyguards and his father’s shady business associates. Not satisfied with his father’s private collection of lions and tigers, he yearns to own a Liberian pygmy hippopotamus.

The young boy’s quest to track down the exotic pet plays out amid a surreal and violent context. Life in the house is akin to falling down the rabbit hole in “Alice in Wonderland,” the novel by Lewis Carroll from which the book takes its name (“Down the Rabbit Hole” is the name of its first chapter).

Villalobos was born in Guadalajara in 1973 and now lives in Barcelona. He studied marketing and Spanish literature and has evidently put the latter to good use.
Originally published in Spanish as “Fiesta en la Madriguera,” the book has since been translated into several languages and is currently available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, India, France and Germany.