Both sides of his family were landowners whose fortunes were dramatically affected by the armed conflicts of the 1910s and 1920s in the country. Rulfo was born in 1917-100 years ago-in the province of Jalisco, in the middle of Mexico’s long and tortuous civil war (1910–20). “No one lives here,” Preciado’s companion explains, before adding, “Pedro Páramo died many years ago.” Rulfo spends the subsequent 120 pages unraveling the apparent contradiction in this exchange, revealing in the process a mysterious universe of supernatural interaction that is both spine-chilling and absolutely addictive. When they get there, however, they are confronted with a ghost town. “He is living rancor,” responds the fellow traveler, who like Preciado is heading towards Comala, their shared birthplace. In the opening passages of Pedro Páramo, Juan Rulfo’s only novel, Juan Preciado, one of the main character’s illegitimate sons, asks his newly met half-brother if he knows anything about their father.
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