Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno, best known as Juan Rulfo, was a Mexican writer, screenwriter, and photographer. He is best known for two literary works, the 1955 novel Pedro Páramo, and the collection of short stories El Llano en llamas (1953). This collection includes the popular tale "¡Diles que no me maten!" ("Tell Them Not to Kill Me!").

Rulfo's work presents a combination of reality and fantasy, set in rural settings after the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero War. Known as a legend of Mexico, he was characterized as an introverted, shy, and enigmatic individual. He was silent, realistic, jealous of his privacy, critical, and creative. His stories highlight contributions to Latin American and world literature, showcasing Christian and indigenous traditions amidst various socio-economic situations of towns plagued with scarcity, lack of opportunities, loneliness, war, and the relationship between nature and man. His characters represent and reflect the typicality of the place with its major socio-cultural problems, intertwined with a chimeric world. Rulfo's work, especially Pedro Páramo, is considered a watershed in Mexican literature, marking the end of the revolutionary novel era and paving the way for narrative experimentations, such as those of the mid-20th century Mexican generation or subsequent Latin American boom writers.

He is widely regarded as the father of magical realism in literature.