Juan Pablo Villalobos - Quesadillas

José López Portillowas president from 1976 to 1982, a period of perpetual crisis characterised by hyperinflation and continual devaluations. He was one of the most histrionic politicians in Mexican history (and that’s saying something). He is remembered for having said he would defend the peso ‘like a dog’. He said this on 4th February 1981 and by the 18th the exchange rate had gone from twenty-eight to seventy pesos to the dollar, which meant a devaluation of 250 per cent. This proves that dogs are dreadful economic strategists.

Luis Echeverría Álvarezwas president from 1970 to 1976. He led a populist government that had perhaps the worst economic administration in the history of Mexico (and that’s saying something). He had a motivational slogan he used to repeat constantly, ‘onwards and upwards’, while the country foundered hopelessly, becoming ever more backward. He was responsible for giving a bad name to Mexico’s beautiful guayabera shirts, which he always wore.

Gustavo Díaz Ordazwas president from 1964 to 1970. Beyond his various ineptitudes, he will be remembered for the massacre of a number of students in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, on 2nd October 1968.

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Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, president from 1982 to 1988 — the period in which this novel takes place — does not get a mention, not because he was a good president, but simply because he was a very boring guy.

The idea of Poland as nowhere is taken from Alfred Jarry, who wrote in his prologue to Ubu Roi : ‘ Quant à l’action qui va commencer, elle se passe en Pologne, c’est-à-dire nulle part .’ Or: ‘As to the action which is about to begin, it takes place in Poland — that is to say, nowhere’ (trans. Beverly Keith and Gershon Legman, Dover, 2003).

Orestes recites fragments from the speech ‘ A los pueblos engañados ’ (‘To the deceived peoples’) by Emiliano Zapata and from ‘La suave patria’ (‘Sweet Motherland’) by Ramón López Velarde (in Song of the Heart: Selected Poems by Ramón López Velarde , trans. Margaret Sayers Peden, University of Texas Press, 1995).

The poor man’s quesadillas, and consequently all the categories of quesadilla, are inspired by my grandmother María Elena’s poor man’s enchiladas. How are you doing, Granny?

Rolando Pérez and his father, of the same name, are not Polish and bear no resemblance to the characters in this novel, but they are inseminators of cows and taught me all I know about this fascinating topic.

Andréia Moroni, Teresa García Díaz, Cristina Bartolomé and Iván Díaz Sancho read the first versions of the novel rigorously.

This book is also dedicated to my parents, María Elena and Ángel, and to my brothers and sisters, Luz Elena, Ángel, Luis Alfonso and Uriel.

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