Pedro Paramo

Pedro Paramo is a 1955 novel by the Mexican writer Juan Rulfo, written in Spanish and published by Fondo de Cultura Economica. It follows Juan Preciado, who travels to the town of Comala to find his father after promising his dying mother he would, and discovers on arrival that the town is populated entirely by the voices and memories of the dead, who gradually reveal the story of his father Pedro Paramo and his domination of the town. Though it sold modestly and received a mixed reception on first publication, the novel came to be seen as a major influence on Latin American fiction, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez credited it with showing him how to write One Hundred Years of Solitude. It is widely regarded as a forerunner of magical realism and has been translated into more than thirty languages.