Books that changed the face of fiction / Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo

Books that changed the face of fiction: Pedro Páramo

BOOKS & POETRY

Mexican writer Juan Rulfo’s dark fable Pedro Páramo ignores boundaries between the living and the dead – but is more than just a ghost story. It is, writes Stephen Orr, a book that created a genre.

Stephen Orr

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Rulfo was the great Mexican and, later, by extension, Latin American writer. He was born in Apulco in 1917 at a time of radical change and experimentation in literature (Edgar Rice Burroughs was still publishing Tarzan novels, and Conrad, The Shadow Line, but meanwhile, Ford Madox Ford had just produced The Good Soldier and Joyce was busy at work on Ulysses).

Books that changed the face of fiction: Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

 

Books that changed the face of fiction: Under the Volcano

BOOKS & POETRY

In this first article in a series about books that have changed or challenged fiction, Adelaide author Stephen Orr looks at Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano – a booze-soaked novel that is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Stephen Orr

January 7, 2019

There seems a niche market for alcoholic, abusive, self-destructive writers with a death-wish. Dylan Thomas, Hemingway – although Malcolm Lowry was, and is, by far the most interesting drunk scribbler. He suckled the teat at 14 because he felt neglected by his mother and, later, guilty (for the rest of his life) about the suicide of his Cambridge room-mate, Paul Fitte, whose homosexual advances Lowry had rejected.

Books that changed the face of fiction: Blutsbrüder by Ernest Haffner

Thousands of books were burned under the Nazi regime. Photo: Georg Pahl

Books that changed the face of fiction: Blutsbrüder

BOOKS & POETRY

Ernst Haffner’s novel Blutsbrüder (Blood Brothers), set in the shadows of Berlin, was burned by the Nazis a year after publication. While the lost gem has been rediscovered, the fate of its author remains a mystery, writes Stephen Orr.

Stephen Orr

January 23, 2019

You know the feeling. A book you’ve been wanting to read for ages, you’re halfway through, loving it, dreading the end (not the ending), when you’ll have to leave this better-than-reality world.