Pedro Pramo

The highly influential masterpiece of Latin American literature, now published in a new, authoritative translation, and featuring an introduction by Gabriel García Márquez

A masterpiece of the surreal that foreshadowed and influenced the rise of “magical realism” in Latin America, Pedro Páramo is the otherworldly tale of one man’s quest for his lost father. Juan Preciado swears to his dying mother that he will find the father he has never met—Pedro Páramo—but when he reaches the ghost town of Comala, he finds it haunted by memories and hallucinations. Built on the tyranny of the Páramo family, its barren and broken-down streets echo with the voices of tormented spirits that share the secrets and traumas of the past. There emerges the tragic tale of Pedro Páramo himself, and the town whose every corner holds the taint of his rotten soul.

Rulfo’s only novel is an uncannily beautiful story of love and the everlasting echoes of the dead. Although initially published to a quiet reception, it was soon recognized as a major novel that has served as a touchstone text for writers including Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Sergio Pitol. Now published in a new translation by celebrated Rulfo scholar Douglas J. Weatherford, in this new edition Pedro Páramo cements its place as one of the must-read literary texts of the twentieth century.