The Burning Plain

A new translation of El Llano en llamas, an iconic collection of short stories that changed the course of Mexican and Latin American literature.Since its publication in 1953, Juan Rulfos The Burning Plain (El Llano en llamas) has become Mexicos most significant and most translated collection of short fiction. Set largely in a distressed rural region of the state of Jalisco known as El Llano Grande (the burning plain of the title), the seventeen stories of this anthology trace the lives of characters in the wake of the Mexican Revolution (19101917) and the Cristero Revolt (19261929). A father carries his fatally wounded son through the night in search of healing; a young girls prized cow is swept away by a flood, along with her familys harvest; and a group of campesinos spend all day walking across the immense, barren Llano that the government has given them to farm. Through it all, Rulfo rejects moralizing and nostalgia, capturing instead the hushed reality of a landscape and people marked by violence and the weight of hardship and injustice.Rulfos writing, often compared in importance to that of William Faulkner, Anton Chekov, and Gabriel Garca Marquez, is characterized by a laconic literary prose and the distinctive language heard throughout the rural communities of southern Jalisco. These qualities come alive in Douglas J. Weatherfords vibrant new rendition of Mexicos most celebrated collection. Seventy years after its first publication in Spanish, Rulfos work speaks to a new generation of readers.Among contemporary writers in Mexico today [1959], Juan Rulfo is expected to rank among the immortals.The New York Times Book ReviewWhat is remarkable about these sketches is that the characters are rendered with deep honesty; their faults are highlighted, celebrated in a way that is reminiscent of Chekhovs peasants.Publishers Weekly