Pedro Páramo is a work of pitched contradiction. The sole novel by Mexican writer Juan Rulfo, first published in 1955, its narrative is rather straightforward, yet fractured to near incoherence. Its form is revolutionary (so much so that it famously inspired Márquez to write One Hundred Years of Solitude) yet its content disparages the actual revolution against which it is set, Rulfo’s family having been displaced and ruined by the land reforms that followed the Mexican Revolution. It is frequently mentioned in discussions of the greatest novels of Latin America, yet it is hardly known among the anglophone world.
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