Pedro Páramo

Rulfo's 1955 surrealist novel portrays a man's quest for his Mexican heritage. (May) Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information.

Dentro de su brevedad, determinada por el rigor y la concentración expresiva, Pedro Páramo sintetiza la mayor parte de los temas que han interesado siempre a los mexicanos, ese misterio nacional que el talento de Juan Rulfo ha sabido condensar por medio de los cotidianos habitantes de Comala, región inscrita ya en la mitología literaria universal.

A masterpiece of the surreal, this stunning novel from Mexico depicts a man’s strange quest for his heritage. Beseeched by his dying mother to locate his father, Pedro Páramo, whom they fled from years ago, Juan Preciado sets out for Comala. Comala is a town alive with whispers and shadows—a place seemingly populated only by memory and hallucinations. Built on the tyranny of the Páramo family, its barren and broken-down streets echo the voices of tormented spirits sharing the secrets of the past.First published to both critical and popular acclaim in 1955, Pedro Páramo represented a distinct break with earlier, largely "realist" novels from Latin America. Rulfo’s entrancing mixture of vivid sensory images, violent passions, and inexplicable sorcery—a style that has come to be known as ‘magical realism”—has exerted a profound influence on subsequent Latin American writers, from Jos’ Donoso and Carlos Fuentes to Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Márquez.

A masterpiece of the surreal, this stunning novel from Mexico depicts a man's strange quest for his heritage. Beseeched by his dying mother to locate his father, Pedro Páramo, whom they fled from years ago, Juan Preciado sets out for Comala. Comala is a town alive with whispers and shadows'a place seemingly populated only by memory and hallucinations. Built on the tyranny of the Páramo family, its barren and broken-down streets echo the voices of tormented spirits sharing the secrets of the past.First published to both critical and popular acclaim in 1955, Pedro Páramo represented a distinct break with earlier, largely "realist" novels from Latin America. Rulfo's entrancing mixture of vivid sensory images, violent passions, and inexplicable sorcery'a style that has come to be known as 'magical realism''has exerted a profound influence on subsequent Latin American writers, from Jos' Donoso and Carlos Fuentes to Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Márquez.