As a traveling salesman, Juan Rulfo crisscrossed Mexico during the 1950s-60s, capturing the dazzling light and darkest shadows of its reality. To look at his photographs of the land and the people is to stare at life and death in an almost unbelievable exquisite balance. There is nothing sentimental, nothing superfluous about the many faces of Mexico Rulfo's camera captures again and again, in the ruins of a church, the smile of a child, the movement of a rebozo (shawl) floating in the wind. His short stories and his novel Pedro Páramo (1955), on the other hand, illuminate the darkest human emotions with new light, probing the boundaries, and building an unlikely bridge between the reader and the suffering soul of a land and its people. To this date, Juan Rulfo is internationally known as one of the best writers of the 20th century.

Exhibit curated by Beatriz Pastor, Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature; Jorge Quintana-Navarrete, Assistant Professor of Spanish; and Jill Baron, Research & Learning Librarian for Humanities & Social Sciences. Images courtesy of Juan Carlos Rulfo. Exhibit design by Dennis Grady.