Pedro Páramo is a classic of Mexican literature, "one of the best novels in Hispanic literature" according to an entire generation of Latin American literary giants -- Borges, García Márquez, Fuentes, Vargas Llosa. The recent Grove Press edition (with English translation by Douglas Weatherford) includes a forward from Gabriel García Márquez about the immense influence the book had on his own writing.
A man swears to his dying mother that he will track down his estranged father. He travels to the rural town of Comala but finds it essentially a ghost town. No worries though because the dead still whisper to him and tell the tragic story of the town's downfall.
Why has Pedro Páramo remained mostly unknown to English-language readers? I would guess that it's because Rulfo's writing is experimental and prioritizes mood over story. Pedro Páramo reminded me of later Faulkner with its blend of memory, allegory, and rural themes told non-sequentially. It also reminded me of Tarkovsky's film Mirror, which creates a similar oneiric mood for a story about a man seeking his father. Mirror is a favorite Tarkovsky film among filmmakers but not his most popular ("While highly acclaimed, Mirror continues to be viewed as enigmatic" [Wikipedia]); Pedro Páramo is canonical among Spanish-language writers and critics but is too rarified to be popular.
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