“The Mexican writer wins the award organized by Anagrama with No voy a pedirle a nadie que me crea (I’m Not Asking Anyone to Believe Me).

Perhaps it’s the only way to address these tragic-comic times: with caustic, almost black humour told in a neutral tone, as though it were the most normal thing in the world, wild and crazy as it may be. Or actually is. And it is this attitude that typifies the work of the Mexican writer Juan Pablo Villalobos, perhaps even more so in No voy a pedirle a nadie que me crea (I’m not Asking Anyone to Believe Me), the book with which he has won the 34th Herralde Prize for the Novel, organized by the publisher Anagrama and worth 18.000 euros. It follows the crazy adventures of a Mexican student in Barcelona who gets tangled up in a ‘high-level deal’, as his swindler friend calls it. It was accompanied on the podium by another comic fable: Amores enanos (Dwarfish Love) by the Argentine writer Federico Jeanmaire, which is about a pair of dwarves who build a neighbourhood just for people like them.”

Translation by The Spanish Bookstage

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