37 20th century Mexican writers

Gabriela Aguileta Estrada is an award-winning Mexican writer of children's books and short stories. Born in Mexico City in 1974, she studied biology at the Faculty of Sciences of the UNAM in Mexico and in 2004 earned a doctorate in genetics from University College London (UK). As scientist and writer she has studied, worked and lived in Israel, Canada, England, Sweden, France, Spain and Switzerland. She was on the editorial board of the children's literary magazine La sonrisa del gato and in 2004 she was awarded a writer's fellowship from the National Foundation for Mexican Literature. She has also authored three popular science books which allowed her to promote interest in science among children and young adults. Most of her work has been published in Spanish.

Alfonso Arau Incháustegui is a Mexican actor and director.

Elena Arizmendi Mejía was a Mexican feminist who established the Neutral White Cross organisation during the Mexican Revolution. She was a part of the first wave of Mexican feminism and established the "Mujeres de la raza" and the International League of Iberian and Latin American Women in co-operation with G. Sofía Villa de Buentello.

Concepción Cabrera de Armida was a Mexican Roman Catholic mystic and writer.

Mariano Azuela González was a Mexican author and physician, best known for his fictional stories of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. He wrote novels, works for theatre and literary criticism. He is the first of the "novelists of the Revolution," and he influenced other Mexican novelists of social protest.

Rosa Beltrán is a Mexican writer, lecturer and academic. On 12 June 12, 2014, she was chosen by the Academia Mexicana de la Lengua to occupy seat 306 in its membership.

Hortensia Blanch Pita was a writer who was born in Cuba and lived in Spain and Mexico. She wrote a noted book about the end of the Spanish Civil War that was published in Mexico. She wrote under the name Silvia Mistral . She had a lifelong interest in film and she died in Mexico.

Ramón Bravo was a Mexican diver, photographer and underwater filmmaker. Bravo was the person who made the phenomenon of sleeping sharks known to the world.

Anita Brenner was a transnational Jewish scholar and intellectual, who wrote extensively in English about the art, culture, and history of Mexico. She was born in Mexico, raised and educated in the U.S., and returned to Mexico in the 1920s following the Mexican Revolution. She coined the term 'Mexican Renaissance', "to describe the cultural florescence [that] emerged from the revolution." As a child of immigrants, Brenner's heritage caused her to experience both antisemitism and acceptance. Fleeing discrimination in Texas, she found mentors and colleagues among the European Jewish diaspora living in both Mexico and New York, but Mexico, not the US or Europe, held her loyalty and enduring interest. She was part of the post-Revolutionary art movement known for its indigenista ideology.

Matilde Rodríguez Cabo Guzmán was Mexico's first female psychiatrist. Also a surgeon, writer, feminist, and suffragist, Rodríguez was an activist for the right of Mexican women, and affiliated with the Mexican Communist Party. She was married to General Francisco J. Múgica; they had a son, Janitzio Múgica Rodríguez Cabo.

María Enriqueta Camarillo (1872–1968) was a Mexican poet-novelist, short story writer and translator. She was highly decorated for her works having schools and libraries named after her, as well as a bust by Spanish sculptor Mariano Benlliure erected in Hidalgo Park in Mexico City in her honor. She received the 1923 literary prize from Académie française for her novel El Secreto. She was awarded a collaborative partnership in 1927 with the Real Academia Hispano-Americana de Ciencias y Artes of Cádiz for her textbook Rosas de la Infancia and for the same work a prize as best children's literature at the Literary Salon of the Universal Exposition in Seville, Spain. Camarillo was granted the Order of Isabella the Catholic in 1947 and in 1948 received the Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise.

Antonio Castro Leal was a Mexican diplomat and intellectual.

Dulché Catalina Escalante , better known as Catalina D'Erzel, was a Mexican journalist, playwright, novelist and poet.

Manuel DeLanda is a Mexican-American writer, artist and philosopher who has lived in New York since 1975. He is a lecturer in architecture at the Princeton University School of Architecture and the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, where he teaches courses on the philosophy of urban history and the dynamics of cities as historical actors with an emphasis on the importance of self-organization and material culture in the understanding of a city. DeLanda also teaches architectural theory as an adjunct professor of architecture and urban design at the Pratt Institute and serves as the Gilles Deleuze Chair and Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School. He holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts (1979) and a PhD in media and communication from the European Graduate School (2010).

Ximena Escalante is a Mexican dramatist who is known for her works reinterpreting ancient Greek and other texts along with those examining the creative process of more modern writers. Born into a theatrical family in Mexico City, she first wanted to be an actress but began writing when she was 16. All of her plays have been staged and most have been published both in Mexico and abroad. Her work has been translated into multiple languages and is regularly invited to events such as the HotInk, the Salon du Livre-Paris, the Miami International Book Fair, the Festival Internacional del Libro in Guadalajara and at The Banff Center and the Rockfeller Foundation. In 2009, she was named an “artistic creator” with Mexico’s Sistema Nacional de Creadores.

Laura Esquivel is a Mexican novelist, screenwriter and a politician who serves in the Chamber of Deputies (2012-2018) for the Morena Party. Her first novel Como agua para chocolate became a bestseller in Mexico and the United States, and was later developed into an award-winning film.

Esther Cohen Dabah is a Mexican writer and academic.

José Isidro Fabela Alfaro was a Mexican judge, politician, professor, writer, publisher, governor of the State of Mexico, diplomat, and delegate to the now defunct League of Nations. Fabela was born in Atlacomulco, Mexico State. He was a member of the group of intellectuals opposed to the Porfirio Díaz regime, the Ateneo de Juventud, a group that also included José Vasconcelos and Diego Rivera. He served prominently revolutionary leader Venustiano Carranza and went on to hold many important posts in the Mexican government.

Elena Garro was a Mexican screenwriter, journalist, dramaturg, short story writer, and novelist. She has been described as the initiator of the Magical Realism movement, though she rejected this affiliation. She is a recipient of the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize.

Alejandro González Iñárritu is a Mexican film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for telling international stories about the human condition, and his projects have garnered critical acclaim and numerous accolades.

Bárbara Jacobs is a Mexican writer, poet, essayist and translator.

Marta Lamas Encabo is a Mexican anthropologist and political science professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and lecturer at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). She is one of Mexico's leading feminists and has written many books aimed at reducing discrimination by opening public discourse on feminism, gender, prostitution and abortion. Since 1990, Lamas has edited one of Latin America's most important feminist journals, Debate Feminista. In 2005, she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Ricardo Lancaster-Jones y Verea, MA BE KHS was a Mexican historian, diplomat, scholar, professor, art collector and sugarcane entrepreneur who made significant contributions toward the study of the haciendas of the State of Jalisco (Mexico) in the twentieth century. He spoke Spanish, English, French, Italian and Latin fluently. He authored and published numerous articles for newspapers and specialized magazines in Mexico, South America, Spain, United Kingdom and United States. His enthusiasm for history led him to become a professor of Regional History at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara in 1965. Later on, in 1973, he earned his MA degree in Latin American Studies at the University of New Mexico. He is especially mentioned by Mexican academics Mauricio Beuchot (2001) and José María Murià (2003) as an early historian of the haciendas in Western Mexico.

Hernán Lara Zavala is a Mexican novelist, literary critic and academic at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Mónica Lavín is a Mexican author of six books of short stories, notable among them Ruby Tuesday no ha muerto ; Uno no sabe ; and her most recent collection, La corredora de Cuemanco y el aficionado a Schubert. In addition she was awarded the Elena Poniatowska Ibero-American Novel Prize for her work Yo, la peor (2010).

Gabriel Fernández Ledesma was a Mexican painter, printmaker, sculptor, graphic artist, writer and teacher. He began his career working with artist Roberto Montenegro then moved into publishing and education. His work was recognized with two Guggenheim Fellowships, the José Guadalupe Posada medal and membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana.

Esperanza López Mateos was a Mexican translator, political activist, syndicalist, and mountaineer. She translated several of B. Traven's novels and was his literary agent in Latin America from 1941 to 1951. She was the sister of politician Adolfo López Mateos and sister-in-law of cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa. She participated in the strike by the miners of Nueva Rosita (1950–1951) and worked with Vicente Lombardo Toledano; together they supported many Jewish exiles fleeing European wars and seeking refuge in Mexico.

Mauricio Magdaleno Cardona, better known as Mauricio Magdaleno, was a Mexican screenwriter and occasional director of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. He was nominated for six Ariel Awards and won for his second nomination for Río Escondido in 1949. Magdaleno was also a well-known journalist, writer, and politician.

Guadalupe "Lupe" Marín, born María Guadalupe Marín Preciado, was a Mexican model and novelist.

Ignacio Mariscal was a Mexican liberal lawyer, politician, writer, and diplomat. He was named Secretary of Foreign Affairs in 1871–72, for the first time during the Benito Juárez administration. During the Porfirio Diaz's government, he held the office in 1880–83 and 1885–1910. In 1909, he was the President of Mexican Academy of the Language.

Concha Michel (1899–1990) was a singer-songwriter, political activist, playwright, and a researcher who published several projects on the culture of indigenous communities. She was one of the few women who performed in the corrido style. She created the Institute of Folklore in Michoacan and was one of the first collectors of folklore and preservers of the traditions of the Mexican people. She was a cultural icon having relationships with two presidents, and a broad range of Mexico's most prominent artists including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Guadalupe Marín, Tina Modotti, Elena Poniatowska, Anita Brenner and others.

Margarita Nolasco Armas was a Mexican ethnologist and anthropologist, who pioneered the study of the country's varied people from a cultural rather than national perspective and founded the new facility of the National Museum of Anthropology. She was one of the group of researchers known as "the magnificent seven of (Mexican) anthropology". She was awarded the Ignacio Manuel Altamirano Medal as well as the National Prize for Arts and Sciences for her work in history and philosophy.

Eugenio Peschard Delgado was a Mexican architect. Prior to joining the faculty of the National University in 1940, Peschard was an architect in the Ministry of Communications and Public Works and a member of the Council of Architecture of the Federal District. He translated a number of architectural books, including works by Hardy Cross, S. Timoshenko, and Vanden Broek.

Pablo Soler Frost is a Mexican novelist, essayist, translator, playwright, short-story and screen writer. A polyglot, he has translated into Spanish several works and poems by Shakespeare, Walpole, Walter Scott, Shelley, John Henry Newman, Joseph Conrad, Robert Frost, Rainer M. Rilke, Theodor Daübler and Joanna Walsh.

José Juan Tablada was a Mexican poet, art critic and, for a brief period, diplomat. A pioneer of oriental studies, and champion of Mexican art, he spent a good portion of his life outside his country. As a poet, his work spans from the fin-de-siècle style to avant-garde experimentalism; he was especially an early haiku pioneer.

Miguel Torruco Marqués is an entrepreneur, academic and Mexican public official. He was the Secretary of Tourism of the Federal District from 2012 to 2017. In 2017, he became a Tourism Adviser of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, president of National Regeneration Movement (MORENA).

Josefina Velázquez de León was a Mexican cook, researcher, author, and teacher. Velázquez de León was a pioneer of Mexican gastronomy and an entrepreneur of Mexican cuisine.