Pedro Paramo

"A thorough reading of Juan Rulfo's work finally gave me the path I was looking for to continue my writing." - Gabriel García Márquez

Fantastic realism as we know it today would not have existed without this book. Colombian Gabriel García Márquez and Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa drew from this source. Combining two elements essential to the success of Latin American literature—fantastic realism and regionalism—Rulfo stands out for his skill in telling a story by bringing together stories and memories.

With a concise and precise plot, Juan Rulfo's only novel concerns the promise Juan Preciado makes to his dying mother. The young man sets out to find his father, Pedro Páramo, a legendary assassin. Along the way, he encounters striking characters filled with memories, who tell him of his father's relentless cruelty.

In its structure, there is no precise timeline, nor a fixed narrator. Juan Rulfo leads us to immerse ourselves and dissolve into the whirlwind of feelings of an entire town, centered around this great man.

Allegorically, the novel is a wounded Mexico, crying out its wounds and its revolutions through a dry village, where only the dead survive to narrate the horrors of its history and politics. Pedro Páramo is essentially about the presence of death in the midst of life. A book of simple and concise poetry, short and unforgettable.