Juan Rulfo (16 May 1917 [not 1918 as he often told people after 1936, see note below] – 7 January 1986) was a Mexican novelist, short story writer, and photographer. One of Latin America's most esteemed authors, Rulfo's reputation rests on two slim books, the novel Pedro Páramo (1955), and El llano en llamas (1953, The Burning Plain), a collection of short stories that includes his admired tale "¡Diles que no me maten!" ("Tell Them Not to Kill Me!"). He was named alongside Jorge Luis Borges as the best Spanish-language writer of the 20th century in a poll conducted by Editorial Alfaguara in 1999. He is the father of director Juan Carlos Rulfo. May 16 is the 136th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (137th in leap years). ... Year 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar (see: 1917 Julian calendar). ... Year 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... January 7 is the seventh day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... Pedro Páramo is a short novel written by Juan Rulfo, originally published in 1955. ... Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986), was an Argentine writer who is considered one of the foremost Hispanic literary figures of the 20th century. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Juan Carlos Rulfo is a Mexican director. ...

Biography

Rulfo was born Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez-Rulfo Vizcaíno in Sayula, Jalisco, Mexico, on 16 May 1917 and not 1918 as he often told people after 1936. He was born in the home of his paternal grandfather, not in Apulco where his maternal grandfather lived — as he led many people to believe — or in San Gabriel, where his grandmother raised him after the death of Rulfo's father when he was six years old (1923), all of which are towns in which he claimed to have been born (and dates which he purposefully confused peopel with). These were all small towns in the south of Jalisco, in the district of Sayula, Jalisco. Rulfo's extended family consisted of landowners whose fortunes were ruined by the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero War of 1926 - 1928, a religiously inspired revolt against the revolutionary government of Mexico that followed the Revolution. Rulfo's father and two uncles died tragically (1928) when he was young; his mother died from a heart attack in November of 1927, when he was ten. Rulfo had just been sent to an study in the Luis Silva School, which some have taken mistakenly for an orphanage in Guadalajara, Jalisco, where he lived from 1928 to 1932, and was unable to attend the funeral. After completing six years of elementary school and a special seventh year from which he graduated as a bookkeeper, though he never practiced it. Rulfo attended a seminary from 1932 to 1934, but because the University of Guadalajara was closed because of a strike and because he had not taken preparatory school courses, he then moved to Mexico City, where he first entered the National Military Academy, which he left after three months, and then he hoped to study law at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He was able to audit courses there in literature because he obtained a job through his uncle, David Pérez Rulfo, a colonel working in the government, as an immigration file clerk (1936), where he first began writing under the tutelage of a co-worker, Efrén Hernández. Later he was able advance in his position, and he traveled as an immigration agent in Guadalajara as well as some other locations in Mexico, working there until 1946. In that year he started as a foreman for Goodrich Euzkadi, but his mild temperament led him to prefer working as a wholesale agent, which led him to travel throughout all of southern Mexico, until he was fired in 1952 for asking for a radio for his company car. He had married Clara Aparicio in Guadalajara in April, 1948, and by then he had two children, Claudia and Juan Francisco. He obtained a fellowship in the Centro Mexicano de Escritores, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, and he was able to write his two books there between 1952 and 1954. In 1944 Rulfo had co-founded the literary journal Pan. After the publication of his two famous books, he virtually ceased writing narrative fiction, but in other ways he remained a major figure in the Mexican literary world. He began writing screenplays for film and television in 1956; he collaborated with Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez on one of his best-known screenplays, which was made into the classic Mexican film "El gallo de oro" (1964). Rulfo even tried his hand at acting in one film, En este pueblo no hay ladrones (1965). He was also an accomplished photographer, though few of his photographs were published in his lifetime. He had shown an exhibition in Guadalajara in 1960, but it was not until 1980, when his photographs were shown during his Homage in the Palacio de Bellas Artes, that his fame increased. Currently there are many books of his photographs, which are also shown in exhibitions around the world by the Rulfo Foundation. Sayula is the birth of influential Mexican novelist and short story writer Juan Rulfo. ... Jalisco is one of the states of the United Mexican States (Mexico). ... This article is about the Mexican Revolution of 1910. ... The struggle between church and state in Mexico broke out in armed conflict during the Cristero War (also known as the Cristiada) of 1926 to 1929. ... An orphanage (historically an orphans asylum before the latter word took on its modern insane asylum connotation) is an institution dedicated to caring for orphans (children who have lost their parents) and abused, abandoned, and neglected children. ... Nickname: City of Roses Western Pearl Coordinates: Country Mexico State Jalisco Boroughs Guadalajara Zapopan Tlaquepaque Tonala Tlajomulco de Zuñiga Foundation 1542 Mayor Ernesto A. Espinosa Guarro Area    - City 187. ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar). ... Year 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... A seminary or theological college is a specialized and often live-in higher education institution for the purpose of instructing students (seminarians) in philosophy, theology, spirituality and the religious life, usually in order to prepare them to become members of the clergy. ... Nickname: Ciudad de los Palacios Location of Mexico City in central Mexico Coordinates: Country Mexico Federal entity Federal District Boroughs The 16 delegaciones Founded (as Tenochtitlan) c. ... The National Autonomous University of Mexico (Spanish: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, commonly abbreviated as UNAM) was founded in 1551, making it the oldest in America. ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense — including the short story, poetry and essay — and also literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews, letters and gossip. ... A screenplay or script is a blueprint for producing a motion picture. ... Carlos Fuentes Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes Macías (born November 11, 1928) is one of the best-known living novelists and essayists in the Spanish-speaking world. ... Gabriel José García Márquez, also known as Gabo (born March 6, 1927) is a Colombian novelist, journalist, publisher, political activist, and recipient of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. ...

In the 1960s Rulfo claimed to be working on a second novel entitled La cordillera, which dealt with the Cristero Revolt in the state of Jalisco, but he said he destroyed it without ever having published it or shown it to anyone else. Only a few passages and an outline of the book remain, published posthumously in his transcribed notebooks. The struggle between church and state in Mexico broke out in armed conflict during the Cristero War (also known as the Cristiada) of 1926 to 1929. ...

Many critics claimed that they saw inspiration from William Faulkner in his works, but after a 1957 MA thesis by James East Irby at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Rulfo began denying that such an influence could exist because he had never read anything by Faulkner. Rulfo was deceiving everyone, because Zepeda has recently published in his book La recepción inicial de Pedro Páramo (pp. 311-313) an article that Rulfo wrote and published in 1954, "The Real World of William Faulkner", in which he goes into great detail about most of Faulkner's novels, showing that Rulfo had indeed read them. Irby was later to teach at Princeton and write about Jorge Luis Borges. William Cuthbert Faulkner (September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American novelist and poet whose works feature his native state of Mississippi. ... The National Autonomous University of Mexico (Spanish: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, commonly abbreviated as UNAM) was founded in 1551, making it the oldest in America. ...

From 1962 until his death, Rulfo served as the director and head editor of the publishing department of INI, the Instituto Nacional Indigenista (National Indigenist Institute), a Mexican government agency. Under Rulfo, INI published a remarkable series of photography books documenting the lives of contemporary Mexican indigenous communities.

Pedro Páramo was published in 1955. The style of this short novel is a precursor of magic realism. Initially, it met with cool critical reception and sold only two thousand copies during the first four years. Later, however, the book became highly acclaimed and has had considerable influence on Latin American literature. Gabriel García Márquez has said that he felt blocked as a novelist after writing his first four books, and that it was only his life-changing discovery of Pedro Páramo in 1961 that opened his way to the composition of his masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude. García Márquez also noted that all of Rulfo's published writing, put together, "add up to no more than 300 pages; but that is almost as many, and I believe they are as durable, as the pages that have come down to us from Sophocles." 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Magic realism (or magical realism) is an artistic genre in which magical elements appear in an otherwise realistic setting. ... Gabriel José García Márquez, also known as Gabo (born March 6, 1927) is a Colombian novelist, journalist, publisher, political activist, and recipient of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. ...

In 1970, Rulfo was awarded Mexico's National Prize for Letters. In 1980, he was elected to the Mexican Academy of Letters and honored with the Homenaje in the Bellas Artes Palace, as well as having a book of his photographs published. In 1983, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for literature. Due to his heavy smoking Rulfo died at age 69 of cancer of the lungs in Mexico City in 1986. Rulfo's son, filmmaker Juan Carlos Rulfo (born 1964), dedicated his 1999 film Del olvido al no me acuerdo (English title: Juan, I Forgot I Don't Remember) to a search for his father's memory. 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Prince of Asturias Awards (in Spanish: Premios Príncipe de Asturias) is a series of annual prizes given in Spain by the Fundación Príncipe de Asturias to individuals from around the world who make notable achievements in the sciences, humanities, or public affairs. ... Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these cells to spread, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion, or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis (where cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). ... Nickname: Ciudad de los Palacios Location of Mexico City in central Mexico Coordinates: Country Mexico Federal entity Federal District Boroughs The 16 delegaciones Founded (as Tenochtitlan) c. ...

• Note: Rulfo's date of birth is under dispute. His official web site gives his year of birth as 1917; however, because after 1937 he began falsifying his true birth date, it is often listed as 1918 [1] [2] ISBN 1-58834-097-X [3].

Books by Juan Rulfo

• El llano en llamas (1953, The Burning Plain), short stories
• Because We are So Poor(1918),short stories
• Pedro Páramo (1955), novel
• Antología personal (1978), contains the two earlier books plus two new short stories
• El gallo de oro y otros textos para cine (1980), screenplays
• Juan Rulfo (The 1980 Homenaje / Homage, republished in part as Inframundo, el México de Juan Rulfo, 1983), photographs by Rulfo, texts by Fernando Benítez, José Emilio Pacheco, and others
• Los cuadernos de Juan Rulfo (1994), transcriptions of his writing notebooks
• Aire de las colinas (2000), a collection of Rulfo's letters to Clara Aparicio (both before and after their marriage).

Pedro Páramo is a short novel written by Juan Rulfo, originally published in 1955. ...

Critical Bibliography

• Brotherston, Gordon. The emergence of the Latin American novel. New York: Cambridge, 1977. ISBN 0521214785
• Detjens, Wilma. Home as creation: early childhood experience in the literary creation of Márquez, Yáñez, Rulfo. New York: P. Lang, 1993 ISBN 0820420557
• Freeman, G[eorge] Ronald. Paradise and fall in Rulfo's Pedro Páramo; archetype and structural unity. Cuernavaca, Mexico: Centro Intercultural de Documentación, 1970
• Harss, Luis and Barbara Dohmann. Into the mainstream; conversations with Latin-American writers. New York: Harper & Row, 1967
• Kristal, Efraín. The Cambridge companion to the Latin American novel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005 ISBN 0521825334 (hbk.) ISBN 0521532191 (pbk.)
• Langford, Walter M. The Mexican novel comes of age. Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Damee Press, 1971 ISBN 0268004501
• Leal, Luis. Juan Rulfo. New York: Twayne (World Authors Series, 692), 1983. ISBN 0-8057-6539-5
• Luis, William. Modern Latin-American fiction writers: First series. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992 ISBN 0810375907
• Peavler, Terry J. Structures of power: Essays on twentieth-century Spanish-American fiction. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996 ISBN 0791428397
• Rulfo, Juan / Pacheco, José Emilio, et al. Inframundo: the México of Juan Rulfo. 1983 ISBN 0910061149
• Vital, Alberto, Juan Rulfo, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, México: Tercer Milenio, 1998. ISBN 970-18149-91
• Vital, Alberto. Noticias sobre Juan Rulfo (1784-2003). Editorial RM, México, 2003. ISBN 968-85208-27
• Vogt, Wolfgang. Juan Rulfo and the south of Jalisco: Aspectos de su vida y obra. GuadalajaraÑ Editorial Agata, 1994 ISBN 9687310502
• Zepeda, Jorge. La recepción inicial de Pedro Páramo: (1955-63). México: Editorial RM / Fundación Juan Rulfo, 2005. ISBN 84-933036-7-4

BOOKS OF PHOTOGRAPHS:

• Juan Rulfo's Mexico. Articles by Carlos Fuentes et al. Trans. Margaret Sayers Peden. Washington & London: Smithsonian Institution Press / Barcelona: Lunweg Editores, 2002 English version: ISBN 1-58834-0997-X
• México: Juan Rulfo, fotógrafo / Fuentes, Carlos, et al. Barcelona: Lunweg Editores, 2001 Spanish version: ISBN 84-7782-772-9
• Juan Rulfo: Letras e imágenes. Ed. Víctor Jiménez. México: Editorial RM, 2002
• Tríptico para Juan Rulfo: Poesía, fotografía, crítica / coord. Jiménez, Víctor. México: Editorial RM, 2006

OUTSIDE LINKS: Official Juan Rulfo page in ClubCultura, from Barcelona: http://clubcultura.com/clubliteratura/clubescritores/juanrulfo/home.htm

References

• "Asombro por Juan Rulfo" - Transcription of a speech given by Gabriel García Márquez on the 50th anniversary of El llano en llamas, 18 September 2002.