June 25, 2026

Preserve Cultures

Preserve Cultures

Book Review: Pedro Páramo (1955) by Juan Rulfo

Pedro Páramo (1955) by Juan Rulfo

By: Ahmad Ali Talha

Translated by: Douglas J. Weatherford 

What happens when a man’s unrelenting desire for power (or lack thereof) transforms an entire town into a ghostly wasteland?  

At its core, Pedro Páramo (1955) by Juan Rulfo tells the story of a man, Juan Preciado, who journeys to the desolate town of Comala, and Media Luna to fulfill his mother’s dying wish to find his estranged father, the eponymous Pedro Páramo. Upon arrival, Juan finds himself trapped in a phantasmagoric realm, where the living and the dead are indistinguishable, and the boundaries of time collapse into a surreal, ghostly present. The spirits of Comala recount the story of Pedro Páramo; a landowner whose tyranny, corruption, and unrequited love for Susana San Juan doomed not just himself but the entire town, reducing it to a desolate wasteland. 

It is a story almost entirely delivered through ghosts but it is never a horror story, a dreadfully tragic one in the wake of post-revolutionary Mexico and its socio-political landscape, it transcends its setting to address universal themes of power, alienation, and the human condition. It is reminiscent of taboos, fleeting human life, and traumatic memories. Jose Saramago’s Blindness, Marquez’ Insomnia and memory loss, and Don Delilio’s The Silence, all stem from this, (much like its ghosts), restless, unforgotten, and unresolved, story. 

I must say the novel is elusive and puzzling, for example, Rulfo’s portrayal of Comala is as much a setting as it is a character, steeped in allegory and symbolism—Comala, derived from the Nahuatl word for a griddle or Oven, hot and barren. Pedro’s name itself, a combination of Peter (biblically, the rock) and Páramo (a wasteland), underscores the duality of his character as both a foundational figure and a harbinger of destruction. These names in the novel are allegorical, much more so for Spanish audiences. 

I loved Pedro Páramo (1955) by Juan Rulfo, although it disturbed me for a week. The story was haunting and thorny, a little too evasive like a fish in water. I must say that I wanted to read this novel in Spanish because I could feel the author telling me more than what I could get through and what I could get was enough to make me feel exhausted. As Douglas J. Weatherford, one of its translators, noted, Rulfo’s prose is “allusively rich with simultaneously being both historical and mythical,” making this slim novel a monumental achievement.

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