Juan Rulfo
1 book analyzed
Biography
Juan Rulfo (1917-1986) grew up in rural Jalisco during the bloodiest period of twentieth-century Mexican history. His father was murdered when Rulfo was six. His mother died when he was ten. He was raised in an orphanage. The Cristero War (1926-1929) devastated his home region, depopulating towns and destroying communities. Rulfo worked in immigration, tire sales, and television before publishing his short story collection El Llano en Llamas (1953) and Pedro Páramo (1955). He never published another novel. When asked why, he said: 'My uncle Celerino died. He was the one who told me the stories.' He spent the rest of his life working at an indigenous affairs institute, photographing rural Mexico, and refusing to repeat himself.