The award-winning debut novel by young Mexican author Aura Xilonen, i The Gringo Champion iis a thrillingly inventive story about crossing borders that thei Los Angeles Review of Books icalled one of the must-read books of 2017. pLiborio 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. pAs 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. pThis is a migrant's story of deracination, loneliness, fear, and finally, love told in a sparkling, innovative pros