Pedro Paramo

About twenty years ago, I read the opening lines of this book (published in 1955) in the evening and finished the entire book in one sitting. This time, I read it in two sittings and fell in love with it again. 

I love how this short novel straddles several genres—literary fiction, magic realism, surrealist fiction, and Gothic fiction—in its own way. I always enjoy a precise and simple style, at which Juan Rulfo excels. Yet, the narrative and the plot are so complex that it's hard to believe so much fits into one hundred pages. 

This book has all the… show more.

I first read this remarkable, surreal tale many years ago. Recently, a new translation by Douglas Weatherford came out and, to my astonishment, proved revelatory. In it, a man searches for his dead father. Time is not linear. It’s hard to tell the living from the dead. In this haunting tale, the living haunt the dead as much or more than the other way around.

The book originally deepened my understanding of what novels can do. This translation expanded the remarkable, dream-like experience.