It was not until the late 19th century, with the arrival of the first printing press and the founding of the Royal Academy of Belles Letters, that Puerto Rican literature began to flourish.

In 1851, the Spanish appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Juan de la Pezuela Cevallo, founded the Royal Academy of Belles Letters.

The literature of these writers helped fuel the desire of some to revolt against the Spanish government in Puerto Rico, resulting in the failed attempt known as the Grito de Lares in 1868.

This circle of intellectuals, writers, poets and playwrights express their experiences as Nuyoricans living in the United States, including those whose works eventually found mainstream audiences and scholarly attention: Nicholasa Mohr (El Bronx Remembered), Piri Thomas (Down These Mean Streets), Pedro Pietri (The Masses are Asses), Giannina Braschi (Yo-Yo Boing!

Poets José de Diego, Virgilio Dávila, Luis Lloréns Torres, Nemesio Canales, Francisco Matos Paoli, Juan Antonio Corretjer, Clemente Soto Vélez and Hugo Margenat were independence advocates who wrote poems with patriotic inspired themes.

In 1928, Soto Vélez, along with Alfredo Margenat (father of Hugo Margenat), Pedro Carrasquillo, Graciany Miranda Archilla, Fernando González Alberti, Luis Hernández Aquino, Samuel Lugo, Juan Calderón Escobar, and Antonio Cruz Nieves founded the group "El Atalaya de los Dioses," which launched the literary movement known as "Atalayismo.

"[5] The "El Grupo Atalaya" movement sought to connect the poetic/literary world with political action and most of its members, including Soto Vélez became involved with the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.

[7][8] Mercedes Negrón Muñoz wrote under the name "Clara Lair" and published "Arras de Cristal" (1937), which describes the everyday struggles of the Puerto Rican.

[14] Francisco Arriví (1915–2007), a prominent voice of Puerto Rican theater, developed a dramatic style known as Areyto and authored "Bolero y plena" (1958) and Vejigantes.

[16] Luis Rafael Sánchez (1936-) wrote Pasión según Antígona Pérez (The Passion According to Antigona Perez), a tragedy based on the life of Olga Viscal Garriga.

[23] Stateside playwrights of Puerto Rican ancestry include Lin-Manual Miranda, who won a Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Awards for the Broadway musical Hamilton.

[27] José Luis González (1926-1996) whose work País de cuatro pisos y otros ensayos describes the rigid structures of island society.

[31] His press coverage has ranged from New York City politics,[32][33][34] cultural reviews[35] and personality profiles,[36] to the Somos Uno Conference[37] and the Puerto Rican Day Parade.

—Herbert S. Klein, Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History Columbia University After a nationalist tradition of Puerto Rican writers from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, authors are catalogued by decade into "generations."

These Puerto Rican writers wrote in Spanish and reflected a literary Latin American tradition, and offered a variety of universal and social themes.

Major writers who got their start in the 1950s include José Luis González, René Marqués, Pedro Juan Soto, and Emilio Díaz Valcárcel.

Major writers of the 1980s and 1990s include Ana Lydia Vega, Giannina Braschi, Martín Espada, Mayra Santos-Febres, Luz María Umpierre, and Eduardo Lalo.

Breakthrough voices of a new Puerto Rican literature began to emerge at the turn of the new century with the publication of Pedro Cabiya's Historias tremendas in 1999.

Identity politics and the complexities of Puerto Rico's relationship with the U.S. — topics that had dominated the work of previous writers — gave way to the exploration of new genres and themes, such as Latinx speculative fiction, horror, fantasy, and noir, as seen in the short stories, novels, and comics by Pedro Cabiya, the experimentation by Bruno Soreno,[42] and the short stories by José Liboy and Luis Negrón (whose Mundo Cruel won a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction, 2014).

[43] Emerging voices on the island include Rafael Acevedo, Moisés Agosto, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Janette Becerra, Ricardo A. Domínguez, Ana María Fuster Lavín, Zoé Jiménez Corretjer, Juan López Bauzá, Alberto Martínez Márquez, Luis Negrón, Maribel Ortiz, Max Resto, and José E. Santos.

Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, Ángel Lozada, Benito Pastoriza Iyodo, Alfredo Villanueva Collado write and publish their works in Spanish on the mainland USA.

Puerto Rican authors who write in English include Erika Lopez, Ivelisse Rodriguez, Lilliam Rivera, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Jaquira Díaz, Richie Narvaez, and Ernesto Quiñonez.