Jose Revueltas

José Revueltas was a prominent Mexican writer, essayist, and political activist. He was born in 1914 in a family of artists, including his brother Silvestre, a composer, and his sister Rosaura, an actress. He joined the Mexican Communist Party in 1928, but was expelled in 1943 for his criticism of the party's bureaucracy and the Mexican Left. He founded the Spartacist League and the Popular Socialist Party, from which he was also expelled. He was arrested several times for his involvement in political movements, such as the Railwaymen's Movement in 1958 and the student movement in 1968, which ended in the Tlatelolco massacre. He wrote his most famous novel, El apando (The Hole), while he was imprisoned in the Lecumberri prison. He also wrote other novels, such as Los muros de agua (The Walls of Water), El luto humano (Human Mourning), and Los errores (The Errors), as well as short stories, essays, and screenplays. He was awarded the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1967. He died in 1976 of a cardiac arrest. He is regarded as one of the most important and original Mexican writers of the 20th century.