Biography of Juan Rulfo

Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Perez Rulfo Vizcanio 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. He 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, he was able to audit literature lectures in Mexico city.
He later confounded the literary journal Pan with mentor Efren
Hernandez. A fellowship he earned in 1952 allowed him to write his
two published works- El llamo en llama (The Burning Place, 1953) and
Pedro Paramo (1955).

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), the most
influential event in Mexican culture and history in the 20 th century; and
the Cristero War(1926-1929), a struggle between the government of
Putarco Elias Calles and Catholic militias over the restricted rights of
the Church. The latter event was particularly notable because during
this time a number of his family members died, leaving him an orphan.
The Mexican Revolution greatly altered his childhood home of San
Gabriel, which had been a thriving town ever since the colonial period.
After the Revolution, the town was impoverished, much like the “ghost
towns” that Rulfo writes about.

Although technically written in the 1950s, Rulfo’s works,(especially

Pedro Paramo) are often classified as belonging to the period of Latin
America literary “boom” in the 60s and 70s during which novels from
this part of the world gained international recognition.

Two years after publishing Pedro Paramo, he retroactively won the

Premio Xavier Villaurrutia of 1955. He also received the Premio
Principe de Asturias de las letras in 1983 and was posthumously
awarded the Premio Manuel Gamio of 1985.

https://www.gradesaver.com/author/juan-rulfo