He spent his teenage years on a coffee plantation in Nirgua with a paternal uncle after the death of his father.
He lived among various agricultural communities and activities, many experiences that would mark his first literary works such as Gleba, Ocho relatos (Gleba, eight stories) and Hacia el Sur (Towards the south), published between 1942 and 1944.
[1][2] In Hacia el Sur (Towards the south) there is an interesting description of agrarian Venezuela which changed its course towards the city.
[1] One of the works that best describes the author as a man of ideals is certainly Cuando cayó el Miliciano (When the Militiaman fell).
[1] His brother Gustavo Rivas-Mijares was born on November 7, 1922, in Valencia, Carabobo, Venezuela.
Waste Water Treatment, 1967 (Universidad Central de Venezuela award, 1979), 1978.