Juan rulfo short biography

Sayula, Jalisco, México, 1917 - México, D.F , 1986

Juan Rulfo spent his childhood in an orphanage in Guadalajara. He later moved to Mexico City, where he worked as an auditor at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. A great scholar of the culture and history of his country, a keen traveller and photography fan, Juan Rulfo needed to write just two books to establish himself as one of the giants of Spanish literature. With the publication of his book of short stories El llano en llamas, he became one of the most distinguished names in Mexican contemporary literature. His only novel, Pedro Páramo, was published in 1955. He had worked on it for more than a decade before its publication, and the work fully consolidated his reputation as one of the most significant authors in universal literature. Hailed as a landmark in magic realism, the work of Juan Rulfo feeds off both traditional Hispanic American narrative and the main innovators in Western literature such as Joyce, Faulkner and Woolf.

  • "In our national culture, Juan Rulfo has been an entirely reliable interpreter of the intimate logic, ways of being, idiomatic sense, and the secret and public poetry of rural populations and communities, so often marginalised and forgotten." Carlos Monsiváis
  • "One of the best novels in Hispanic literature, and in literature as a whole." Jorge Luis Borges
  • "The most beautiful story ever written in the Spanish language."Gabriel García Márquez 
  • “Among contemporary writers in Mexico today Juan Rulfo is expected to rank among the immortals.” Selden Rodman, New York Times Book Review

Bibliography

Other genres

Novel

El gallo de oro, 1980

The Golden Cockerel is the legendary lost novella from Juan Rulfo, published in Spanish for the first time in 1980.

With the novella are collected several sketches and other writings, most of which speak to Rulfo’s preoccupations, chief among them de

Juan Rulfo

Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo

Born
May 16, 1918
Apulco, Jalisco (Mexico)
Died
January 7, 1986
Mexico City

Juan Rulfo (May 16, 1918 – January 7, 1986) was one of Latin America's most admired novelists and short story writers. His most commendable achievement was having managed to revolutionize Mexican literature with only two publications. These two books were El Llano en Llamas (1953), a collection of short stories, and Pedro Páramo (1955), a short novel. Rulfo's work has been praised worldwide for how he incorporated magic realism into his fiction while being able to present a cohesive account of an important aspect of Mexico's history as he experienced it. His writing was born out of a vision he had of Mexico in a period where the country failed its citizens despite the myriad of social and economic programs they attempted to incorporate. Magic realism in fiction originated largely in Latin America, representing a response to the "dis-enchantment" of modern life.

Rulfo's Background

Very little is known about Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo's childhood apart from the few and imprecise facts he announced publicly over the years. He was born in Apulco, Jalisco on May 16, 1918, to a wealthy land owning family on the rural countryside. At a very young age, his family moved to San Gabriel, Jalisco. His ancestors originally came from the north of Spain in the late 1700s. The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and the cristero rebellion had serious repercussions on Rulfo's family. As a result of the revolution, his family underwent financial ruin, his father and two uncles were assassinated in the turmoil, and his mother died in 1927 of a heart attack. Since nobody adopted Rulfo after these incidents, he was sent to an orphanage.

In an interview conducted by Joseph Sommers in 1978, Rulfo described his childhood as very rough for him. He told Sommers about how difficult it was

  • Juan rulfo works
    1. Juan rulfo short biography

    Juan Rulfo

    For his son, see Juan Carlos Rulfo. For the Mexican footballer, see Juan Carlos García Rulfo.

    In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Rulfo and the second or maternal family name is Vizcaíno.

    Mexican writer (1917–1986)

    Juan Rulfo

    BornJuan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno
    16 May 1917
    Apulco, Jalisco (Disputed as being in San Gabriel, Jalisco), Mexico
    Died7 January 1986(1986-01-07) (aged 68)
    Mexico City, Mexico
    OccupationWriter, screenwriter, photographer
    Notable worksEl Llano en llamas (1953)
    Pedro Páramo (1955)

    Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno, best known as Juan Rulfo (Spanish:[ˈxwanˈrulfo]; 16 May 1917 – 7 January 1986), was a Mexican writer, screenwriter, and photographer. He is best known for two literary works, the 1955 novel Pedro Páramo, and the collection of short stories El Llano en llamas (1953). This collection includes the popular tale "¡Diles que no me maten!" ("Tell Them Not to Kill Me!").

    Early life

    Rulfo was born in 1917 in Apulco, Jalisco (Disputed as being in San Gabriel, Jalisco) Mexico, although he was registered at Sayula, in the home of his paternal grandfather. Rulfo's birth year was often listed as 1918, because he had provided an inaccurate date to get into the military academy that his uncle, David Pérez Rulfo — a colonel working for the government — directed.

    After his father was killed in 1923 and his mother died in 1927, Rulfo's grandmother raised him in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Their extended family consisted of landowners whose fortunes were ruined by the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero War of 1926–1928, a Roman Catholic revolt against the persecutions of Christians by the Mexican government, following the Mexican Revolution.

    Rulfo was sent to study in the Luis Silva School, where he lived from 1928 to 1932. He c

  • Juan rulfo education
  • Juan rulfo family
  • Juan rulfo most famous work
  • Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno, known professionally as Juan Rulfo, was born on May 16, 1917 in the town of Sayula in the state of Jalisco, located in the western part of central Mexico. Jalisco is a Nahuatl word that means “sandy plain” and this is precisely the hot, arid, imposing terrain where nearly all of Rulfo’s narratives are set. Rulfo spent a great deal of his childhood in the house of his paternal grandparents in San Gabriel. During this time he was granted access to the library of a priest who stored his books in his grandparents’ home. These texts were fundamental to his literary development.

    Though a strike at the University of Guadalajara prevented him from enrolling, Rulfo was able to audit literature lectures in Mexico City. He later cofounded the literary journal Pan with mentor Efrén Hernández. He traveled extensively throughout the 30s and 40s, and eventually had stories published in Pan and another Mexican magazine. In 1948, Rulfo married Clara Angelina Aparicio Reyes and they had four children. A fellowship he earned in 1952 allowed him to write his two published works - El llano en llamas (The Burning Plain) (1953) and Pedro Páramo (1955).

    In order to understand Rulfo’s novel and short stories, it is important to be aware of two defining events which occurred during Rulfo’s childhood: the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), without a doubt the most influential event in Mexican culture and history in the 20th Century; and the Cristero War (1926-1929), a struggle between the government of Plutarco Elias Calles and Catholic militias over the restricted rights of the Church. The latter event was particularly notable for Rulfo because during this time a number of his family members died, leaving him an orphan. In particular, the death of his father in 1923 (apparently killed by a young man with whom he had a conflict) and his mother in 1927, shortly after Rulfo had been sent to boarding school, would have a l