[1] Arreola is recognized as one of the first Latin American writers to abandon realism; he used elements of fantasy to underscore existentialist and absurdist ideas in his work.

Arreola was born on September 21, 1918, in Zapotlán el Grande (modern-day Ciudad Guzmán), in the state of Jalisco.

On the last day of 1936, Arreola moved to Mexico City after selling his Oliver typewriter and his shotgun to afford the trip.

The year after that, he published a revised Confabulario and won the Premio del Festival Dramático from the National Institute of Fine Arts.

The same year, he published La feria, a work dense with references to his native Zapotlán El Grande, which would be remembered as one of his finest literary accomplishments.

The following year, he edited the anthologies Los Presentes and El Unicornio, and became a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

In 1971, Confabulario, Palindroma, La feria, and Varia invención were republished as part of a series of his greatest works, Obras de Juan José Arreola.

Arreola suffered from hydrocephalus, a condition that afflicted him during the last years of his life, and as a result, on December 3, 2001, he died at the age of 83 at his home in Jalisco.

"[9] Despite his relatively small oeuvre, Arreola occupies a fixed place in 20th century Mexican and Latin American literature.