The Fiction of Juan Rulfo2012

"This is the first extended, English-language study to focus exclusively on the fiction of Juan Rulfo in over twenty years. It contains innovative analysis of a selection of short stories from Rulfo's collection, El Llano en Llamas (1953). It also examines in great depth two of the main characters of Pedro Páramo (1955), Rulfo's masterpiece and only novel. The book shows how Rulfo's works can be read as exercises in irony directed against the rhetoric of post-Revolutionary Mexican governments. It also demontrates the relevance of certain legacies of colony in Rulfo's use of irony. Successive Mexican governments promoted a vision of post-Revolutionary society founded on specific notions of ethnicity, family, nation, education, religion and rural politics. The author combines examination of...