JUAN RULFO: BIOGRAPHY, STYLE, COMPLETE WORKS AND PHRASES - LITERATURE - 2025

Juan Rulfo, full name Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno (1917-1986), was a Mexican writer, photographer, and screenwriter. Although his work was not the most extensive, he has been considered one of the most important authors of the 20th century, due to his narrative qualities.

Juan Rulfo's work was characterized by capturing accurately, and at the same time fanciful, some events associated with life in the countryside and the events after the Mexican Revolution. Hence, his work was linked to the "generation of the half century."

Juan Rulfo. Source: Public domain. Taken from Wikimedia Commons.

Having included Juan Rulfo within the generation of the middle, century or generation of 52, stage of transition from rural to urban, also meant that he was part of the phenomenon called the Latin American boom. That is, his work was made known throughout Europe and the entire world.

Biography

Birth and family

Juan Rulfo was born on May 16, 1917 in Apulco, Jalisco, into a wealthy family. His parents were Juan Nepomuceno Pérez Rulfo and María Vizcaíno Arias. The marriage had five children, the writer was the third. At an early age the Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno brothers were orphaned.

In 1924, when Juan Rulfo was barely seven years old, his father was shot dead. According to historians, the weapon was detonated by the son of the then municipal president of Tolimán. The event shocked the entire community, and marked the writer for life.

Education of Juan Rulfo

Juan Rulfo's education began in his hometown, the same year that his father died, 1924. However, in 1929 he went to live in the municipality of San Gabriel, with his grandmother, after the unexpected death of his mother.

Yes, as if it was not enough to lose his father, just 5 years later, the writer lost his mother. The premature departure of their parents was a hard blow for all the Rulfo brothers.

Shortly after arriving in San Gabriel, Juan Rulfo was admitted to the orphanage for nuns in Guadalajara, called Luís Silva. During the time he was there, the writer went through an inclement discipline, similar to the military one, which left negative and indelible memories in his memory.

Attempts at a university education

In 1933, at the age of sixteen, Juan Rulfo wanted to pursue university studies. So he took the necessary actions to enter the University of Guadalajara. However, the student protests of that time prevented it.

The following year he went to Mexico City, tried to study law, but did not pass the required exams. At that time he attended the Colegio de San Idelfonso as a listener, and the art history classes at the National University. With this, he expanded his knowledge of the history of his country.

Some publications and trips through the Mexican territory

Juan Rulfo began to express his interest and passion for letters in 1934, when he wrote for magazines such as América and Pan. At that time the writer worked in the Secretary of Government, as an immigration official. Holding that position allowed him to travel throughout much of Mexico.

During those trips, Rulfo came into direct contact with the idiosyncrasy of the Aztec people, the language, dialects and different forms of expression, as well as the way of life. Those experiences gave him enough material to write his works.

First novel and photographic work

Juan Rulfo House of Culture. Source: Vladmartinez, via Wikimedia Commons

In 1938 Juan Rulfo gave free rein to his literary pen when he began to write Los Niños del Desaliento, a novel that did not come to light, because the author described it as “very bad”. Four years later, two of his stories were published in the Pan de Guadalajara magazine.

Starting in 1946, and for six years, he worked as a traveling representative in a tire company. Then, in 1947, he married Clara Angelina Aparicio Reyes, the fruit of love, four children were born. In 1949 his passion for photography led him to publish his compositions in America.

His masterpiece

After working for six years at the Goodrich-Euzkadi tire company, Rulfo retired to dedicate himself fully to his literary production. In 1952 he obtained a subsidy, or scholarship, from the Centro Mexicano de Escritores, this allowed him to publish, a year later, El llano en llamas.

However, Juan Rulfo's greatest work came to light in 1955 under the title of Pedro Páramo. In that novel, reality and the occult were combined to give life to one of the most outstanding works of Latin American literature of the mid-20th century.

Honor to whom honor is due

From the publication of El llano en llamas, and even more so by Pedro Páramo, Juan Rulfo became the most important and widespread Mexican writer inside and outside his territory. In 1958 his work Pedro Páramo had been translated into German, quickly into English, French, Italian, Swedish and Finnish.

On the other hand, consecrated writers for the time such as Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luís Borges, Günter Grass, among others, were his greatest admirers. Regarding Rulfo's greatest work, the Argentine writer Borges asserted: “… it is one of the best novels in all of literature”.

Dedication to Mexican Anthropology

Juan Rulfo, after having written El llano en llamas and Pedro Páramo, made the decision to put writing aside. That was due, according to the same author, to the death of his uncle Celerino, who told him endless stories and filled his imagination with stories. He made such a statement at the Central University of Venezuela in 1974.

So the writer, during the last twenty years of his life, dedicated himself to producing the editions on the anthropology of Mexico at the National Indigenous Institute of his country. His thirst for knowledge of all the history, culture and geography of Mexico was his highest vocation and hobby.

Rulfo's passing

Juan Rulfo died on January 7, 1986 in Mexico City, due to pulmonary emphysema. His departure left a deep wound among his family, friends and fans. The writings on his death gave rise to the publication of Los murmullos, a journalistic anthology about the death of Juan Rulfo.

Awards and recognition for Juan Rulfo

- Xavier Villaurrutia Award for Writers for Writers (Mexico, 1955) for the novel Pedro Páramo.

- National Prize for Literature (Mexico, 1970).

- Invited by the University of Warsaw, Poland, to participate in the student congress in 1974.

- Member of the Mexican Academy of Language as of July 9, 1976. His place was seat XXXV (thirty-five), which he took on September 25, 1980.

- Prince of Asturias Award (Spain, 1983).

Style

Juan Rulfo's literary style was characterized by the constant use of Mexicanisms, that is, terms or words typical of the culture of his country. The language used by the author was often out of cult, he used ancient words, as well as those of Nahuatl and Mayan.

Herminio Martínez and Juan Rulfo. Source: Royalwrote, via Wikimedia Commons

In Rulfo's literature he also highlighted the use of nouns and diminutives. In addition, the writer gave depth to his works through his expressive capacity, where the fundamental theme was to develop the reality that the rural area of ​​his country lived.

Development of Rulfo's work

Rulfo developed his stories through a narrative full of emotions, nostalgia, thoughts and memories, that meant that the action of his characters was almost nil. Within its plots there was reality, fantasy, mystery and enigma, which caused curiosity and uncertainty in the readers.

Old Colegio de San Idelfonso, where Juan Rulfo attended as a listener. Source: Museum of Light - UNAM, via Wikimedia Commons

Being a work focused on Mexican peasants, Juan Rulfo universalized them by not putting physical characteristics on them. However, he made clear the environment and time of the events, which were the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero War of the early twentieth century.

Emotions as a treatment of reality

Rulfo was a close man and also a student of the history of his country, Mexico. That was why within his literary style the feeling of pain, powerlessness and loneliness of rural society was reflected in the face of the preeminence and advantage that large landowners or landowners had.

Similarly, the writer's experience of having lost his parents while still a child reflected it in his work, which made it more intense and profound. The end of human life in the literature of Juan Rulfo was reflected in a sensitive way, with literary resources such as comparison and metaphor.

Complete works

Juan Rulfo's literary work was one of the shortest in contemporary literature of the 20th century. However, it was enough for the Mexican writer to be considered one of the most important and universally known.

-Stories

The work focused on two stories, the first was that of Juan Preciado, a man who goes in search of his father, called Pedro Páramo to the town of Comala, with the aim of taking revenge for the abandonment of him and his deceased mother. The other was that of Pedro, a corrupt cacique.

Environment and mysticism

Rulfo, as in El llano en llamas, set the story in Colima, specifically in the town of Comala, during the Cristero War that occurred from 1926 to 1929, in Mexico. In addition, the reality, the mystical and the mysterious were combined to give it magic.

The author started from the use of the so-called magical realism to express feelings and emotions from the unreal and unusual. This is how he captured the critics and readers, through a story where the town's inhabitants are deceased who tried to reconstruct their stories.

Narrative structure

Another point in favor of Juan Rulfo with this work was the way he structured the narrative, that is, the way he played with the stories. Although there were two main narratives, it also incorporated other short stories that were related to Pedro Páramo and Juan Preciado.

Those incorporated stories were related to: Juan Preciado and his mother, and the others with Pedro Páramo and Susana, with their men of war and also with their son. Rulfo's genius led him to break up those little stories into shorter pieces and strategically place them in the main ones.

This novel by Rulfo gave readers a different way of reading. It started with one of the central stories, but then elements foreign to the story entered, so the reader had to reread to be able to locate themselves. In this way, Pedro Páramo became a unique piece of world literature.

fragment

“I came to Comala because they told me that my father, a certain Pedro Páramo, lived here. My mother told me… "Don't stop going to visit him," she recommended, "… I'm sure he'll be happy to meet you." I imagined seeing that through my mother's memories; of her nostalgia, between snatches of sighs… ”.

- Posthumous editions

- Juan Rulfo's notebooks (1994).

- Air from the hills (2000).

- The golden rooster (2010).

Most representative works of the posthumous editions

The golden rooster

It was a short novel by Rulfo, so many times he himself considered it as a short story or story. Although the writer developed it for two years, between 1956 and 1958, it was in 1980 when it came to light. Then, in 2010, a corrected edition was published.

The novel narrated the love story between the gallero Dionisio Pinzón and Bernarda Cutiño, better known as La Caponera, who sang at the fairs. In addition, he told how the protagonist achieved wealth and fame through a rooster that had been given to him.

The history

Dionisio Pinzón was a young man who lived in the town of San Miguel del Milagro, he was the town crier. His life was mired in poverty, and he had to take care of his sick mother until her last days. While doing that, he dedicated himself to taking care of a sick rooster that they gave him.

When his mother passed away, Dionisio did not have a decent burial and was the victim of ridicule and criticism. However, his rooster recovered and began to give him fortune, until one day he was fatally wounded. The young man then met the famous gallero Lorenzo Benavides and they became associated.

The story became a tragedy when Dionisio fell in love with Lorenzo's lover, La Caponera, and they began to live a disorderly life, between games of chance and gambling. They finally married and had a daughter named Bernarda; but misfortune came when the protagonists took their lives.

World famous work

As with El llano en llamas and Pedro Páramo, Juan Rulfo managed to cross borders with El gallo de oro. It was known worldwide because it was translated into several languages, including Portuguese, German, French and Italian. In addition, adaptations were made for the cinema.

Fragment

«-Seven of glasses - it said -, two of golds. Five of Wands. King of Wands… and Ace of Wands. ”He continued to carve the remaining cards and mention them quickly. By merit it was yours, sir. Dionisio Pinzón watched as they collected their money. He moved away, the huntsman proclaimed: "In the other is luck!"

-Rulfo at the movies

It is important to note that Juan Rulfo also had participation in the cinema as a screenwriter. He collaborated with the film director Emilio Fernández, better known as “El Indio”. The following films emerged from his work El gallo de oro:

- El gallo de oro (1964) directed by Mexican Roberto Gavaldón.

- The secret formula (1964) by Rubén Gámez Contreras from Mexico.

- The Empire of Fortune (1986) by Mexican filmmaker Arturo Ripstein and Rosen.

On the other hand, the stories of Rulfo El día del collambe and Anacleto Morones, who made up El llano en llamas, gave rise to the film El rincón de las virgenes, in 1972, directed by the Mexican Alberto Isaac Ahumada, better known as “El Güero ”.

Phrases

- “Every writer who believes is a liar; literature is a lie, but from that lie comes a recreation of reality; recreating reality is, therefore, one of the fundamental principles of creation ”.

- “The imagination is infinite, it has no limits, and you have to break where the circle closes; there is a door, there may be an escape door, and through that door you have to lead, you have to leave ”.

- “Working you eat and eating you live”.

- "Walking on the roads teaches a lot."

- “As you all know, there is no writer who writes everything he thinks, it is very difficult to transfer thought to writing, I think that nobody does it, nobody has done it, but simply, there are many things that being developed are lost ”.

- "The illusion? That costs expensive. It was hard for me to live longer than I should have".

- “People die anywhere. Human problems are the same everywhere ”.

- "… But it is dangerous to walk where everyone walks, especially carrying this weight that I carry."

- “I have patience and you don't have it, so that's my advantage. I have my heart that slips and turns in its own blood, and yours is shattered, tempered and full of rot. That is also my advantage ”.

- "She was so pretty, so, let's say, so tender, that it was a pleasure to love her."

References

1. Tamaro, E. (2019). Juan Rulfo. (N / a): Biographies and Lives. Recovered from: biografiasyvidas.com.
2. Juan Rulfo. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: wikipedia.org.
3. Juan Rulfo. (S. f.). Cuba: Ecu Red. Recovered from: ecured.cu.
4. Juan Rulfo. Life and work. (2014). Spain: Federico García Lorca Municipal Public Library in Villanueva del Ariscal. Recovered from: libraryvillanuevadelariscal.wordpress.com.
5. Rulfo Juan. (2019). (N / a): Writers. Recovered from: writers.org.