Pedro Páramo

A masterpiece of the surreal, this stunning novel from Mexico depicts a man's strange quest for his heritage. Beseeched by his dying mother to locate his father, Pedro Páaacute;ramo, whom they fled from years ago, Juan Preciado sets out for Comala. Comala is a town alive with whispers and shadows-a place seemingly populated only by memory and hallucinations. Built on the tyranny of the Páramo family, its barren and broken-down streets echo the voices of tormented spirits sharing the secrets of the past.

First published to both critical and popular acclaim in 1955, Pedro Páramo represented a distinct break with earlier, largely "realist" novels from Latin America. Rulfo's entrancing mixture of vivid sensory images, violent passions, and inexplicable sorcery–a style that has come to be known as 'magical realism"–has exerted a profound influence on subsequent Latin American writers, from Jos' Donoso and Carlos Fuentes to Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Márquez.