The Story of My Teeth

Praise for Valeria Luiselli:

"Valeria Luiselli's lovely and eccentric first novel is . . . peppered with arresting imagery."The New York Times

"Luiselli's extraordinary debut novel Faces in the Crowd signals the arrival of major talent." Jeremy Ellis, Brazos Bookstore

With her first novel, Luiselli has established herself as a brilliant explorer of voice, self, and art."Josh Cook, Porter Square Books

"Luiselli's Faces in the Crowd is one of the most mesmerizing debut novels in recent memory." Diesel Bookstore Blog

Valeria Luiselli's Faces in the Crowd won the 2014 Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum First Fiction Award and was a National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 and Indies Next Pick.

I was born in Pachuca, the Beautiful Windy City, with four premature teeth and my body completely covered in a very fine coat of fuzz. But I'm grateful for that inauspicious start because ugliness, as my other uncle, Euripides Lopez Sanchez, was given to saying, is character forming.

Highway is a late-in-life world traveler, yarn spinner, collector, and legendary auctioneer. His most precious possessions are the teeth of the "notorious infamous" like Plato, Petrarch, and Virginia Woolf. Written in collaboration with the workers at a Jumex juice factory, Teeth is an elegant, witty, exhilarating romp through the industrial suburbs of Mexico City and Luiselli's own literary influences.

Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City in 1983 and grew up in South Africa. Her work has been translated into many languages and has appeared in publications including theNew York Times, Granta, and McSweeney's.