Born in March 31, 1914 —died April 19, 1998, Mexico City. Paz was a Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat, recognized as one of the major Latin American writers of the 20th century. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990 and received numerous other awards, including the Cervantes Prize.

Paz’s family was ruined financially by the Mexican Civil War, and he grew up in straitened circumstances. Nonetheless, he had access to the excellent library that had been stocked by his grandfather, a politically active liberal intellectual who had himself been a writer. Paz was educated at a Roman Catholic school and at the University of Mexico. He published his first book of poetry, Luna silvestre (“Forest Moon”), in 1933 at age 19. In 1937 the young poet visited Spain, where he identified strongly with the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. His reflection on that experience, Bajo tu clara sombra y otros poemas (“Beneath Your Clear Shadow and Other Poems”), was published in Spain in 1937 and revealed him as a writer of real promise.

Born November 11, 1928, Panama City, Panama—died May 15, 2012, Mexico City, Mexico. A Mexican novelist, short-story writer, playwright, critic and diplomat whose experimental novels won him an international literary reputation.

The son of a Mexican career diplomat, Fuentes was born in Panama and traveled extensively with his family in North and South America and in Europe. He learned English at age four in Washington, D.C. As a young man, he studied law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City and later attended the Institute of Advanced International Studies in Geneva. Fuentes was a member of the Mexican delegation to the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva (1950–52), was in charge of cultural dissemination for the University of Mexico (1955–56), was cultural officer of the ministry (1957–59), and was ambassador to France (1975–77). He also co-founded and edited several periodicals, including Revista Mexicana de literatura (1954–58; “Mexican Review of Literature”).

Source: http://www.britannica.com

Juan Rulfo, in full Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno (born May 16, 1917, Mexico—died January 7, 1986, Mexico City), Mexican writer who is considered one of the finest novelists and short-story creators in 20th-century Latin America, though his production—consisting essentially of two books—was very small. Because of the themes of his fiction, he is often seen as the last of the novelists of the Mexican Revolution. He had enormous impact on those Latin American authors, including Gabriel García Márquez, who practised what has come to be known as magic realism, but he did not theorize about it. Rulfo was an avowed follower of the American novelist William Faulkner.

As a child growing up in the rural countryside, Rulfo witnessed the latter part (1926–29) of the violent Cristero rebellion in western Mexico. His family of prosperous landowners lost a considerable fortune. When they moved to Mexico City, Rulfo worked for a rubber company and as a film scriptwriter. Many of the short stories that were later published in El llano en llamas (1953; The Burning Plain) first appeared in the review Pan; they depict the violence of the rural environment and the moral stagnation of its people. In them Rulfo first used narrative techniques that later would be incorporated into the Latin American new novel, such as the use of stream of consciousness, flashbacks, and shifting points of view. Pedro Páramo (1955; Eng. trans. Pedro Páramo) examines the physical and moral disintegration of a laconic cacique (boss) and is set in a mythical hell on earth inhabited by the dead, who are haunted by their past transgressions.

Born on September 30, 1950, in Mexico City, Mexico. Esquivel began writing while working as a kindergarten teacher. She wrote plays for her students and then went on to write children’s television programs during the 1970s and 1980s.

Esquivel often explores the relationship between men and women in Mexico in her work. She is best known for Como Agua para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate), an imaginative and compelling combination of novel and cookbook. After the release of the film version in 1992, Like Water for Chocolate became internationally known and loved. The book has sold more than 4.5 million copies.

Esquivel has continued to show her creative flair and lyrical style in her later work. Accompanied by a collection of music, her second novel The Law of Love (1996) combined romance and science fiction. Between the Fires (2000) featured essays on life, love, and food. Her novel, Malinche (2006), explores the life of a near mythic figure in Mexican history, the woman who served as Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés’s interpreter and mistress.

More recently, Esquivel has entered politics, winning a seat in Mexico City’s Local Council.