Juan Rulfo

Amit Thakkar (Lancaster University)

Ed. by Ben Bollig, University of Oxford
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.3: Hispanic Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ben Bollig (University of Oxford), Ceire Broderick (University College Cork), Nuala Finnegan (University College Cork), Anna Forné (Gothenburg University), Cara Levey (University College Cork), Lori Oxford (Western Carolina University), Ailsa Peate (University of Westminster)

Dates

Born 16 May 1917
Died 7 Jan 1986
Activity 1935-1986

Places

Born in Mexico
Active in Mexico

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Story-writer

Other

Photographer

Resources

Rulfo's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Juan Rulfo was born in 1917 in Apulco but spent most of his early years in the neighbouring town of San Gabriel. Both these towns are in Jalisco, a state which lies in the conservative north-west of Mexico, very much one of the focal points of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and the epicentre of the Cristero War (1926-29). The Mexican Revolution left a legacy of violent score-settling which continued to shape the lives of those who lived in the countryside. Rulfo's father was murdered in 1923 (his paternal grandfather died a year after) and he was only eight at the start of the Cristero War, a bloody conflagration between Church and State which claimed the lives of some 250,000 combatants and civilians, among them Rulfo's uncles. To cap these misfortunes, Rulfo's mother died of a heart…

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2464 words

Citation: Thakkar, Amit. "Juan Rulfo". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 August 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11993, accessed 21 November 2024.]