Manuel Zapata Olivella (Santa Cruz of Lorica, Córdoba, 17 March 1920 – Bogota, 19 November 2004) was a Colombian doctor, anthropologist, and writer.

When he was a boy, his father, the professor Antonio María Zapata Vásquez, moved with his family to Cartagena de Indias.

In Mexico City, he worked in the Psychiatric Sanatorium of Dr. Ramírez and afterward in the Hospital Ortopédico of Alfonso Ortiz Thrown.

He argued against his brother Virgil by defending the United States, but he later changed his mind after being racially discriminated against during a trip to the country.

[3] His previous novel In Chimá is born a saint (1964) was a finalist in two contests, the Esso of 1963, in which it was defeated by Gabriel García Márquez with The bad hour, and the Prize of Brief Novel Seix Barral, in which first place went to The city and the dogs by Mario Vargas Llosa.