Emilio Díaz Valcárcel (October 16, 1929 – February 2, 2015) was an acclaimed Puerto Rican writer who won several awards.
[4] At the age of twenty he was recruited by the United States Army and sent to the Korean War, an experience that would leave a mark on a large part of his work.
He directed the cultural magazine Cupey and served as Professor of Language and Literature at the University of Puerto Rico, from where he retired in 1995.
Díaz Valcárcel is part of a group of Puerto Rican writers that emerged with great force in the mid-twentieth century and that includes figures such as José Luis González, Pedro Juan Soto and René Marqués.
He has several books of short stories and among his novels the following stand out: Figuraciones en el mes de marzo, finalist for the 1971 Seix Barral Brief Library Award, which entered Puerto Rico in the "boom" of Spanish-American literature; Hot Soles in Harlem; My Mom Loves Me; The Man who Worked on Monday; and Laguna y Asociados.