Juan Carlos Botero studied Literature at the University of the Andes, the Universidad Javeriana and at Harvard. He has been a columnist for La Prensa, El Tiempo and El Espectador in Colombia, and his stories have appeared in various international anthologies. In 1986 he won the Juan Rulfo Short Story Prize for El encuentro, selected from among over three thousand entries, and in 1990 won the 19th Latin American Story Competition in Mexico for El descenso, from among 1,500 submissions. He has published books of short stories, non-fiction, novels and critical writing, including The Art of Fernando Botero, translated from Spanish into English and Chinese, and he currently writes a column for El Espectador. His ninth book, a novel entitled Los hechos casuales, is due to be published this year, as is a critical study of the work of Gabriel García Márquez, entitled Las zonas de influencia.