Pedro Páramo – Rulfo Juan (2020)

Juan Preciado returns to his dying mother's native village at her request. Instead of the once-paradisiacal Comala, he finds only a barren place and gradually uncovers that life here is nothing more than a mere memory. The unreal intertwines with the everyday, and in this mythical space, the contradiction between life and death is dissolved. The story concentrates around the ambivalent figure of Pedro Páramo, who ruthlessly rules the entire region while simultaneously suffering from an unrequited love for Susana San Juan. However, this is not a typical depiction of the tragic life of a Mexican landowner - the narrative consists of fragments of dialogues and monologues from hard-to-identify voices, and the chronological sequence of events is disrupted by memories and inserted conversations from the past. The novella, which was originally to be titled Whispers, is composed of the voices of the dead, presents the perspective of superstitious Mexican villagers, and is overflowing with symbolic figures and references. Pedro Páramo quickly became a seminal work of Hispanic American literature after its publication, with its influence found in authors such as Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Julio Cortázar.