Born in a village in 1917, Rulfo came to Mexico City at the age of 15. He started writing short stories during the 1930s. His first collection of short stories came out in 1953 and after two years came out his first and only novel, Pedro Páramo. The novel was a success. Not only that, it influenced Latin American fiction so much so that a new mode of expression known as magic realism emerged and came to stay as the hallmark of the Latin American novel. Gabriel Garcia Marquez himself has confessed that it was only after a deep study of Pedro Páramo that he was able to evolve a style of his own. He says that he read it so many times that it formed a part of his memory.
Juan Rulfo has this to say about himself and the novel: “I carry with me in my lifetime a long series of silences. So is the case with my writing. For long, I went on writing my novel and destroying it till I was sure of having discovered a mode of expression for it. And then I finally wrote it.” This is how this novel was written, a novel which now enjoys the status of a legend. The novelist too has grown into a legendary figure.
When Pedro Páramo was published it took the literary world of Latin America by storm. The readers were perplexed, not knowing how to read it. The narrative appeared so puzzling. Of course, it had started in a very simple way. The first line in translation reads: “I arrived at the Comala as I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Paramo, lives there. The one who told me about it was my mother. I had promised her that after she passes away I will go there and meet him. She was on the deathbed and I was in a mood to make any promise to her.”
Such is the beginning of this novel. The central character starts narrating the purpose of his visit in a matter-of-fact way. But soon the narration starts to mystify. In fact, this man, Juan Perciado, takes this visit lightly in the beginning. But he soon realises that there is something mysterious in the air, that people around him are shadowy figures rather than real living people. The atmosphere around him seems to turns ominous and murky and soon it dawns upon him that he is wandering in a city of dead souls.
How does one describe this murky situation where there is a confusion of faces and voices? It defies any realistic depiction. So a way of description which speaks of the vagueness and a confused state of things is introduced.
Translating such a text, which is a whirlpool of complications, is a difficult task. Ahmad Mushtaq has dared to accept this challenge and has translated the novel in Urdu from its English translation. The inherent complications are of course very much there. But the translation is fairly good and creates little problem for the reader.
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