Born and raised in the state of Guanajuato, he moved to Mexico City initially to start a career in art.

Unable to enter the Academy of San Carlos, he attended the Escuela Preparatoria Nacional, where he met writers such as Rafael Solana, Carmen Toscano and Octavio Paz.

[1][3][4] He was the seventh of eight children born to José Mercedes Huerta, a lawyer and judge and Sara Roma, with two of his siblings dying in childhood.

[3] In his free time, he was a passionate soccer player,[4] and later in his life would become a fan of the Mexico City Atlante team, never missing a home game.

[3] Huerta's interest in drawing prompted him to move to Mexico City at age 16 and live with family members while he tried to get into the Academy of San Carlos, but was not accepted.

[3] Instead, Huerta entered the National Preparatory School in 1931, studying under Julio Torri and Agustín Loera y Chávez and forming friendships with Rafael Solana and Carmen Toscano.

[4] Much of his day-to-day life during this period revolved about the historic center of Mexico City, especially the area around the Monument to the Revolution and the main street called San Juan de Letrán (today Eje Central).

Late nights he was a regular customer at Sidralí, a hot dog and cider establishment, a favorite among journalists, and every Sunday was spent at the Ciudad de los Deportes to watch a bullfight or a match involving the Atlante team.

He was an involved father, especially with his two daughters, taking them to the movies, to the Zaplana bookstore, Super Leche (known for its hamburgers and bottles of milk) and El Moro for churros and hot chocolate, all along San Juan de Letran.

[3] The origin of Huerta’s nickname El Cocodrilismo “The Crocodilism” is in late 1949, during funding drive for a school in San Felipe Torresmochas, Guanajuato.

[2][4] Efraín Huerta died almost ten years later in Mexico City at the age of 67 due to kidney failure after battling a return of cancer.

[4] Huerta's first important publication is Los hombres del alba (Men of the dawn), published in 1944, and is considered a classic of 20th century Mexican poetry.

In 1956, he published Los poemas de viaje, works inspired by his travels to the United States, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and his observation of social and political issues.

[4] He is part of the Taller generation in Mexico, along with Octavio Paz, Rafael Solana, Salvador Toscano and others, which rejected lyricism subjectively and aesthetically, opting instead to promote an idea of universal solidarity.

[9] His work continues the Whitmanian tradition of rebellious non-conformity and vitality, but he eliminates Whitman’s base idealism and employs anti-rhetorical lyricism.

He generally condemned imperialism and capitalism in favor of socialism and supported the Soviet regime, especially with the poems Stalingrado en pie (1942) and Canto a la paz soviética (1947).

[4] In Huerta's last phase of production, from 1969 to his death, he develops a new format of poetry called poemínimo, short playful verses, where he explored topics with humor, irony and cynicism.

These first appear in 1969 in a magazine called Comunidad and in the supplement La Cultura en México, then in books such as Poemas prohibidos y de amor (1973), Los eróticos (1974), Circuito interior (1977), culminating in 50 poemínimos (1978).

[4] Huerta's political activities began early, joining the Great Socialist Party of Central Querétaro in 1929.

In 1934, Huerta and Paz fought against José Revueltas' incarceration for “antisocial activities”, and later were vocal together about the Spanish Civil War.

[2] One event about which he was relatively silent was the student uprising in Tlatelolco in 1968, although he had strong opinions about it and about the Mexico president at the time, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz.

[2] In the late 1940s, Huerta was awarded the Ordre des Palmes académiques by the French government for his work as a writer and journalist.