The Puerto Rican Literature Project

Alfredo Matillas Rivas was a poet, writer, scholar, producer, actor, and consultant for independent films. He was born in Valencia, Spain in 1937 and raised in Puerto Rico. His father Alfred Matilla Jimeno was a classical musician and was exiled from Spain as a result of the Civil War.. He joined others living in exile in Puerto Rico, such as Pablo Casals. Matillas Rivas held a BA from the University of Puerto Rico, and an MA and PhD in Hispanic Literature from New York University. He also served on the New York State’s Comité de Asuntos Hispánicos, the Western New York Hispanic Arts Advisory Council, and the Latin Artists’ Coalition, which he co-founded. He is the author of Yo no soy novia de nadie (Renopla, 1973), Catálogo de locos (Editorial Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1978), and El españolito y el espía (Isla Negra Editores, 1999). He also edited Illusions of a Revolving Door: Plays by Pedro Pietri (University of Puerto Rico Press, 1992), and co-authored The Puerto Rican Poets (Bantam, 1972). Matillas Rivas was a champion of the Nuyorican poet and playwright Pedro Pietri and authored two book-length translations of his writing. He taught at Long Island University, Vassar College, Goucher College, Brooklyn College, and SUNY University at Buffalo before returning to the archipelago. At age 63, Matillas Rivas died on March 29, 2001 in Puerto Rico. At the time of his death, he was an English and Spanish professor at the University of Puerto Rico. 

Works Cited

"Alfredo Matilla Rivas." Reviewed by Lizette Cabrera Salcedo, edited by Mariela Fullana Acosta, EnciclopediaPR, 11 September 2014, enciclopediapr.org/content/alfredo-matilla-rivas/.

Donovan, Patricia. "Alfredo Matilla, Former UB Professor, Poet and Novelist, Dies at 63." University at Buffalo News Center, 16 April 2001, www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2001/04/5138.html.