The Gringo Champion

By Aura Xilonen

Book Overview

The award-winning debut novel by young Mexican author Aura Xilonen, The Gringo Champion is a thrillingly inventive story about crossing borders that the Los Angeles Review of Books called one of the must-read books of 2017.

Liborio has to leave Mexico, a land that has taught him little more than a keen instinct for survival. He crosses the Rio Bravo, like so many others, to reach the promised land. And in a barrio like any other, in some gringo city, this illegal immigrant tells his story.

As Liborio narrates his memories we discover a childhood scarred by malnutrition and abandonment, an adolescence lived with a sense of having nothing to lose. In his new home, he finds a job at a bookstore. He falls in love with a woman so intensely that his fantasies of her verge on obsession. And, finally, he finds himself on a path that just might save him: he becomes a boxer.

This is a migrant's story of deracination, loneliness, fear, and finally, love told in a sparkling, innovative prose. It's Million Dollar Baby meets The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and a story of migration and hope that is as topical as it is timeless.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1609453654
• ISBN13: 9781609453657
• Release Date: January 2017
• Publisher: Europa Editions
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.3" x 8.1"