[2] His father, the economist Rafael Menjívar Larín, was director of the University of El Salvador.
When the army occupied it in 1972, during which his father was jailed for a short period, after being exiled in Nicaragua they were forced out in January 1973 towards Costa Rica.
He studied music, theatre and English Literature, and published many books, his first of note being Historia del Traidor de Nunca Jamás, a novel written in 1984 for which he received the EDUCA Latinoamerican award.
In 1999 he settled in El Salvador, where in 2001 he became a Coordinator of Letters (Literature director) and founded La Casa del Escritor (the House of the Writer), a project aimed at providing a formation of young writers, located at the house of Salvador Salazar Arrué.
Despite being based in El Salvador he continued to be active in Mexican projects, publishing books there.