Juan Villoro is Mexico’s most prolific author, playwright, journalist, and screenwriter. He has received the Herralde award in Spain for his novel El Testigo, the Antonin Artaud award in France for Los Culpables (The Guilty), and his novel, Arrecife (The Reef), was short-listed for the Rezzori Prize in Italy. This is his second book published by George Braziller, following The Guilty. He lives in Mexico City and is a visiting lecturer at Yale and Princeton Universities.

The Reef
A Novel by Juan Villoro
Translated by Yvette Siegert

Paperback, 240 Pages

ISBN 978-0-8076-0021-4
$17.95 (Can $23.95)
Also available as an ebook

At a Caribbean resort specializing in faked cartel kidnappings and staged guerrilla warfare, recovering ex-rocker, Tony Góngora, attempts to solve the mystery of an American scuba-diver’s murder. Against the backdrop of a deteriorating climate, a fast-eroding beachfront, cartel violence, official corruption, and delusional Western escapism, Tony and an international cast of hotel staffers make and break alliances as artifice and reality start to blur. With his signature wit, originality, and dashes of dazzling social theory, Villoro has created a biting satire of tourism and a brilliant analogy for Mexico’s unique position in global politics.

Praise for The Reef
 

“The Reef is whip smart, an ebulliently satirical take on contemporary Mexico, growing older and having a past, and so much else.  I love the relentless surprises embedded in the movement of Villoro's sentences.  This writer's brain obviously moves very fast and his art lies in slowing his prose just enough to let us in on the spectacle.”
—Francisco Goldman

“I have admired Juan Villoro ever since reading his stories in The Guilty. His new novel The Reef is even more impressive for a powerful, headlong narrative of sustained sleuthing and suspense and the inside-out of appearance and reality. This is the ultimate portrait of a sunny place with shady people, with reflections on Mexico ‘the land of impunity.’ Another Villoro triumph.”
—Paul Theroux