Villoro Entangled: Arts and Artifices of the Traveler or Tourist Distinction

Argues that Juan Villoro’s crónica and satirical fiction are complementary genres that explore the contradictions of writing about travel and tourism in Mexico. This book is a reading of Juan Villoro’s narratives of travel and tourism in Mexico as the expressions of an “entangled” positionality. Villoro Entangles argues that his crónica and satirical fiction are complementary genres that explore the contradictions of writing about travel and tourism in Mexico. When Juan Villoro takes on writing about travel and tourism in Mexico, he does so as a Mexican author of global report. His own literary and historical musings collide with the complaints, the platitudes, and the posturings of multiple tourist sets. Villoro and his fictional protagonists become entangled in strands of cultural knowledge and touristic frivolity, and their account of it is as critically significant as it is entertaining. To fully critique the manufactured authenticity of Mexico’s tourist zones—which do not always announce themselves as such— Villoro, the author as traveler, must give account of Villoro, the author as tourist.