The Puerto Rican Literature Project

The short story writer, essayist, playwright and lawyer Emilio Maldonado was born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico in 1903 and died in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1972. In 1927, he obtained his law degree from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law in Río Piedras, and, for almost twenty years, he worked as a lawyer, serving his community. In the second half of his life, he held the position of clerk in several courts, until becoming the associate justice in the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico from 1953 to 1967. His other positions include being president of the Ateneo Puertorriqueño, founder and director of the Sociedad Dramática Areyto, founding member of the Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española and the Academia de Artes y Ciencias de Puerto Rico. Today, the Universidad de Sagrado Corazón theater bears his name. His work includes La novela de una vida simple (1935), Cuando las flores de Pascua son flores de azahar (1939), Hay que decir la verdad (1940), La muerte (1953), La hacienda de los cuatro vientos (1959), El puerto y el mar (1965), and Agua de la mala suerte, agua de la buena suerte (1967), among others.

Works Cited

“Emilio S. Belaval Maldonado.” EnciclopediaPR, Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidades, 16 September 2014, enciclopediapr.org/content/emilio-s-belaval-maldonado/.

Rivera de Alvarez, Josefina. Literatura puertorriqueña, su proceso en el tiempo. Ediciones Panteón, Madrid, 1983.