Author Guide · Mexican Literature
Books Written by
When Pedro Páramo came out in Mexico in 1955, it sold about 2,000 copies in four years. Its author, Juan Rulfo, was then a former tyre salesman who had been fired from Goodrich-Euzkadi for asking for a radio in his company car. He had written it, and the stories of El Llano en llamas (1953), on a fellowship at the Centro Mexicano de Escritores. After that he published almost no more fiction, yet Gabriel García Márquez said that reading Pedro Páramo in 1961 showed him the way to One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Jorge Luis Borges counted it among the greatest texts in any language. Rulfo was also a serious photographer, with more than 6,000 negatives in his archive. This guide covers his five key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 5 key books · 1953–2002 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Juan Rulfo published two books of fiction in his lifetime that made his name: the story collection El Llano en llamas (1953, in English The Burning Plain) and the novel Pedro Páramo (1955). The novella El gallo de oro (The Golden Cockerel) followed in 1980, alongside books of his photographs. Start with Pedro Páramo: it is short, and it is the book most later Latin American writers point back to.
Where to Start with Juan Rulfo
If you want his defining book
→ Pedro Páramo (1955) — the 1955 novel set among the dead of Comala.
If you want short stories
→ The Burning Plain (1953) — seventeen stories of rural Jalisco after the Revolution.
If you want a more straightforward story
→ The Golden Cockerel (1980) — the cockfighting novella filmed in 1964.
If you want to see his Mexico
→ Juan Rulfo’s Mexico (2002) — his photographs, with essays by Carlos Fuentes and others.
5 Juan Rulfo Books, in Order
The Burning Plain
Fifteen stories published by the Fondo de Cultura Económica in 1953; the 1970 edition added “La herencia de Matilde Arcángel” and “El día del derrumbe”, for seventeen. They are set in the poor countryside of Jalisco during and after the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero War, and include “¡Diles que no me maten!”, “Luvina” and “¿No oyes ladrar los perros?”. In English it has appeared as The Burning Plain (George D. Schade, 1967; Douglas J. Weatherford, 2024) and The Plain in Flames (Ilan Stavans and Harold Augenbraum, 2012).
Pedro Páramo
Juan Preciado goes to the town of Comala to find his father, Pedro Páramo, as he promised his dying mother, and finds a place inhabited by the dead, whose voices tell the story of the landowner who ruled and ruined it. Earlier working titles were Una estrella junto a la luna and Los murmullos. Early reviews were cool, but it has since been translated into more than 30 languages, and the English version has sold more than a million copies in the United States. It was filmed by Carlos Velo in 1967 and by Rodrigo Prieto for Netflix in 2024.
The Golden Cockerel
Dionisio Pinzón, a poor town crier, is given a golden fighting cock and rises with it through the world of cockfights and gambling. Rulfo wrote it between 1956 and 1958, and Roberto Gavaldón filmed it in 1964 from a script by Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez; the text itself was not published until 1980, and in a revised edition in 2010. Douglas J. Weatherford’s translation, The Golden Cockerel & Other Writings (2017), adds other shorter pieces.
Inframundo
The first book of Rulfo’s photographs, published by Ediciones del Norte with essays in Spanish and English (second edition 1983).
Juan Rulfo’s Mexico
A larger selection from the more than 6,000 negatives held by the Fundación Juan Rulfo, published by the Smithsonian Institution Press with Lunwerg Editores. It has essays by Carlos Fuentes, Margo Glantz, Erika Billeter and others; the Spanish edition, México: Juan Rulfo fotógrafo, appeared in 2001.
In What Order to Read Juan Rulfo
Rulfo’s fiction fits in a few hundred pages, so reading all of it is realistic. Publication order works well: the stories of The Burning Plain introduce the landscape, the voices and the violence that Pedro Páramo then turns into one fragmented novel.
The Golden Cockerel is more straightforward in its storytelling and can be read at any point. The photography books are best kept for last, once you know the places the fiction describes.
A reading path
1. The Burning Plain (1953)
2. Pedro Páramo (1955)
3. The Golden Cockerel (1980)
4. Juan Rulfo’s Mexico (2002)
English Translations of Juan Rulfo
Beyond the 5 key books: 7 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Pedro Páramo in English
3
3 books · 1959–2023
- 1959Pedro Páramotranslated by Lysander Kemp (Grove Press)
- 1994Pedro Páramotranslated by Margaret Sayers Peden (Grove Press)
- 2023Pedro Páramotranslated by Douglas J. Weatherford
El Llano en llamas in English
4
4 books · 1967–2024
- 1967The Burning Plain and Other Storiestranslated by George D. Schade (University of Texas Press)
- 2012The Plain in Flamestranslated by Ilan Stavans and Harold Augenbraum, with the two stories added in 1970
- 2019El Llano in Flamestranslated by Stephen Beechinor (Structo)
- 2024The Burning Plaintranslated by Douglas J. Weatherford (University of Texas Press)
The years · 1917–1986
Quick facts about Juan Rulfo
- Known for
- Writing two of the most influential books in Latin American literature, El Llano en llamas (1953) and Pedro Páramo (1955), and then publishing almost no more fiction
- 1917
- Born in Apulco, Jalisco
- 1953
- El Llano en llamas
- 1955
- Pedro Páramo
- 1970
- Mexico’s Premio Nacional de Literatura
- 1986
- Dies in Mexico City
- Born
- 16 May 1917, Apulco, Jalisco (the place and year are disputed; he was registered in Sayula)
- Died
- 7 January 1986, Mexico City
- Childhood
- His father was killed in 1923 and his mother died in 1927; he was raised by his grandmother and in a Guadalajara boarding school
- Worked
- Immigration service, Goodrich-Euzkadi, the Papaloapan river commission, and from 1962 the Instituto Nacional Indigenista
- Honours
- Premio Nacional de Literatura (1970), Príncipe de Asturias Prize for Literature (1983)
- Married
- Clara Aparicio, in Guadalajara in 1948; their son Juan Carlos Rulfo is a filmmaker
- Photography
- More than 6,000 negatives, held by the Fundación Juan Rulfo
The red mark is 1955: Pedro Páramo, the novel set in Comala.
How Juan Rulfo Writes: Voices from Comala
Rulfo writes almost entirely in the voices of poor rural people from Jalisco, in short sentences close to spoken speech. In translating The Plain in Flames, Ilan Stavans and Harold Augenbraum kept what their publisher calls his “peasantisms” rather than smooth them into standard English. The stories rarely explain: a man begs for his life, a father carries his wounded son through the night, and the reader has to work out the history behind it.
Pedro Páramo takes this further. It has no chapters and no single narrator; it is built from short fragments, some told by Juan Preciado, others by the dead in their graves, and it moves between past and present without warning. The scholar Antonio Alatorre, who knew Rulfo, pointed to the influence of William Faulkner on this method.
His other subject is the Mexican countryside after the Revolution and the Cristero War, which ruined his own family. The same land appears in his photographs. For writers who learned from him, see Authors like Gabriel García Márquez.
Frequently asked questions about Juan Rulfo’s books
How many books has Juan Rulfo written?
Five are on this page: the story collection El Llano en llamas (1953), the novel Pedro Páramo (1955), the novella El gallo de oro (1980) and two books of photographs, Inframundo (1980) and Juan Rulfo’s Mexico (2002). Only the first two were his major works of fiction; García Márquez said his published writing came to no more than 300 pages.
What are Juan Rulfo’s books in order?
El Llano en llamas / The Burning Plain (1953), Pedro Páramo (1955), El gallo de oro / The Golden Cockerel (1980), Inframundo: El México de Juan Rulfo (1980) and Juan Rulfo’s Mexico (2002).
Where should I start with Juan Rulfo?
With Pedro Páramo. It is a short novel, and it is the book his reputation rests on. If you prefer to start more gently, read a few stories from The Burning Plain first, such as “¡Diles que no me maten!” or “¿No oyes ladrar los perros?”.
What is Juan Rulfo’s most famous book?
Pedro Páramo (1955), about Juan Preciado’s search for his father in the ghost town of Comala. It has been translated into more than 30 languages.
Why did Juan Rulfo stop publishing?
He never fully explained. He worked for years on another novel, La cordillera, of which only fragments survive in the Fundación Juan Rulfo, and he told the interviewer Luis Harss that he had written and destroyed an earlier novel set in Mexico City. From 1962 until his death he worked as an editor at the Instituto Nacional Indigenista.
How did Juan Rulfo influence Gabriel García Márquez?
García Márquez said that after his first four books he felt blocked as a novelist, and that discovering Pedro Páramo in 1961 opened the way to One Hundred Years of Solitude. He also co-wrote the 1964 film of El gallo de oro with Carlos Fuentes.
Has Pedro Páramo been made into a film?
Several times: by Carlos Velo in 1967, by José Bolaños as Pedro Páramo: El hombre de la media luna in 1976, and by the cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, in his debut as a director, for Netflix in 2024, with Manuel García-Rulfo as Pedro Páramo and Tenoch Huerta as Juan Preciado.
Was Juan Rulfo also a photographer?
Yes. He took photographs throughout his life, and the Fundación Juan Rulfo holds more than 6,000 of his negatives. They are collected in Inframundo (1980) and Juan Rulfo’s Mexico (2002).
Why was the Juan Rulfo Prize renamed?
The Guadalajara International Book Fair’s literary prize was originally named after him. In 2005 his family asked for his name to be removed, objecting to the direction the prize had taken, and in April 2006 they registered “Juan Rulfo” as a trademark. The prize is now called the Premio FIL de Literatura en Lenguas Romances. The family and the fair later resumed working together.
When was Juan Rulfo born, and when did he die?
He was born on 16 May 1917 in Jalisco, Mexico, although 1918 is often given because he used a false date to enter a military academy, and his exact birthplace is disputed. He died in Mexico City on 7 January 1986.
Footnotes
- Juan Rulfo — Wikipedia
- El Llano en llamas — Wikipedia
- The Plain in Flames — University of Texas Press
- Juan Rulfo — Biografías y Vidas
- La familia de Rulfo y el premio — Página/12, 2006
- Pedro Páramo: curiosidades de la película de Netflix — El Imparcial, 2024
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Vine a Comala porque me dijeron que acá vivía mi padre, un tal Pedro Páramo.”
— Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo (1955), the first line
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