Juan Rulfo(1918-1986)
- Writer
- Actor
Mexican writer who was important in the development of the "magic
realism" school of Latin-American fiction. As a child growing up in the
rural countryside, he witnessed the horrors of the later Cristero
uprisings of 1926-29. His family of prosperous landowners lost a
considerable fortune. When moved to Mexico City, Rulfo worked for a
rubber company and as a film script writer. Many of the short stories
that were later published in "El llano en llamas" (1953) first appeared
in the review "Pan"; they depict the violence of the rural environment
and the moral stagnation of its people. In them Rulfo first used
narrative techniques thet later would be incorporated into the
Latin-American new novel, such as the use of interior monologue, stream
of consciousness, flashbacks, and shifting points of view. "Pedro
Páramo" (1955) treats the physical and moral disintegration of a
laconic 'cacique' (boss) and is set in a mythical hell on earth
inhabited by dead individuals who are constantly haunted by their past
transgressions. From 1933 Rulfo lived in Mexico City. He became
director of the editorial department of the National Institute for
Indigenous Studies and advised young writers at the 'Centro Mexicano de
Escritores'.
