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Pedro Páramo
Juan Rulfo
Novel, 1955. Translated from Spanish
A son searches for his father in Comala, a ghost-haunted rural town shaped by caciquismo and the aftermath of the Revolution.
Books by country North America
Books set in Mexico
Six books by writers from Mexico, set there, that give a real sense of the place, starting with Pedro Páramo and The Labyrinth of Solitude.
About the literature of Mexico
Mexico's Octavio Paz won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990, and his essays in The Labyrinth of Solitude remain a key text on Mexican identity. Paz was also a poet, and poetry has deep roots in the country: in the seventeenth century Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a nun, wrote verse and plays in colonial New Spain. The Revolution that began in 1910 became a central subject for later writers.
Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo sends a son to look for his father in Comala, a ghost-haunted rural town ruled by a ruthless landowner. Carlos Fuentes's The Death of Artemio Cruz traces the life of a dying revolutionary-turned-power-broker and the Revolution's betrayal. Juan Pablo Villalobos's Down the Rabbit Hole gives a darkly comic view of narco culture through a child living in a drug lord's mansion.
By writers from Mexico
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The Labyrinth of Solitude
Octavio Paz
Essays, 1950. Translated from Spanish by Lysander Kemp
Essays probing Mexican identity, the Revolution, the pachuco and the legacy of conquest; nonfiction, but essential for understanding the culture.
The Death of Artemio Cruz
Carlos Fuentes
Novel, 1962. Translated from Spanish
A dying revolutionary-turned-power-broker recalls his life, tracing the Revolution's betrayal and the rise of modern Mexico's ruling elite.
Like Water for Chocolate
Laura Esquivel
Novel, 1989. Translated from Spanish
A ranch family in Revolution-era northern Mexico, with cooking and household tradition central to its story of love and constraint.
Faces in the Crowd
Valeria Luiselli
Novel, 2011. Translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
A layered novel moving between Mexico City and other places, with Mexico City's literary and social life central to its plot.
Down the Rabbit Hole
Juan Pablo Villalobos
Novel, 2010. Translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey
A child narrator in a drug lord's mansion on Mexico's northern coast gives a darkly comic view of narco culture.
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