Juan Rulfo (1917-86) was born in Jalisco, Mexico, where, as a child, he experienced the violence of the government-Church conflict that escalated into the Cristero rebellion (1926-29). Losing both of his parents at an early age, Rulfo lived in a Franciscan orphanage before studying at the University of Guadalajara. In 1942 he began contributing to the journal America and in 1945 published the first in a series of cuentos, or short stories, that would form part of what is now considered his only other significant work, El Llano En Llamas (The Burning Plains). In 1954 Rulfo published fragments of Pedro Páramo, which appeared in its entirety in 1955 and distinguished itself as remarkable for its innovative style and intimate look at rural village life.
Rural Mexico in the late nineteenth century. Towards the end of the nineteenth century Mexico was a predominantly rural and agricultural country in which feudalistic haciendas still prevailed. Self-enclosed and self-governing, these large estates manufactured their own products and paid their laborers extremely low wages that the peasants had no choice but to accept—private jails and terror kept the work force in line.
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