Tochtli lives in a palace. He loves hats, samurai, guillotines and dictionaries, and what he wants more than anything right now is a new pet for his private zoo: a pygmy hippopotamus from Liberia. But Tochtli is a child whose father is a drug baron on the verge of taking over a powerful cartel, and Tochtli is growing up in a luxury hideout that he shares with hit men, prostitutes, dealers, servants and the odd corrupt politician or two. Down the Rabbit Hole, a masterful and darkly comic first novel, is the chronicle of a delirious journey to grant a child’s wish. It has created quite a buzz in the Spanish-speaking world and beyond. It was published in Spain in 2010 (Anagrama) and has already been translated into Portuguese, French, Italian, German, Romanian, Dutch and English. Every writer should attempt to go beyond the limits of possible experience. It sounds nice: really I just copied it from the dictionary. The dictionary also says that to transcend is to find out something that is hidden. That is: reality on its own is worth nothing; we have to transform it into culture.

• Villalobos.