Juan Álvarez was born in Neiva, Colombia, in 1978. He earned his MFA in Spanish and English at the University of Texas-El Paso and his PhD in Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia University. He was awarded the 2005 “Ciudad de Bogotá” National Short Story Prize for his book Falsas alarmas; he also received the 2010 Revista Iberoamericana Essay Prize. In 2011, he published the novel C.M. No récord, and his work has been included in anthologies in Colombia, Mexico, and Spain. From 2008 to 2011, he was co-editor of the literary magazine El perro, which was awarded the Edmundo Valadés Grant for independent magazines three years in a row by Mexico’s Fondo Nacional para Cultura y Artes.