Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1973. His first novel, Fiesta en la madriguera (Anagrama, 2010), published in English as Down the Rabbit Hole (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2012) was shortlisted for The Guardian First Book Award), and with the last one, No voy a pedirle a nadie que me crea, (Anagrama, 2016) he was awarded the Herralde Novel Prize 2016. His novels has been translated into fifteen languages. He writes for several publications, including Granta, Letras Libres, Gatopardo and English Pen's Blog, and translates Brazilian literature into Spanish. He has been member of the judging panel of the José Revueltas National Prize for Young Novelists 2014, the International Dublin Literary Award 2016 and the Elena Poniatowska Iberoamerican Prize 2016. He has attended literary festivals and book fairs in Mexico, Spain, UK, United States, France, Germany, Brasil, Canada, Romania, Bulgaria, Denmark, Ireland, Portugal, Indonesia and Austria.

He left Mexico in 2003 and lived in Barcelona for several years, then moved to Brazil, and is now back in Spain. He is married with two Mexican-Brazilian-Catalan children.