Emilio Carballido

Who was Emilio Carballido?

Emilio Carballido was a Mexican writer who earned particular renown as a playwright.

Carballido belonged to the group of writers known as the Generación de los 50, alongside such figures as Sergio Magaña, Luisa Josefina Hernández, Rosario Castellanos, Jaime Sabines, and Sergio Galindo. He studied English literature and earned a master's degree in literature from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

As a playwright his first work was Rosalba y los Llaveros, which premiered at Palacio de Bellas Artes in 1950, directed by well-known poet and stage director Salvador Novo. This was followed by a huge number of plays, including Un pequeño día de ira, which earned him the Casa de las Américas Prize, ¡Silencio Pollos pelones, ya les van a echar su maíz!, Te juro Juana que tengo ganas, Yo también hablo de la rosa, Acapulco los lunes, Las cartas de Mozart, and the box office hit Rosa de dos aromas.

Some of his works as a playwright were filmed for the screen, such as Rosalba y los llaveros, Felicidad, La danza que sueña la tortuga, "El censo", Orinoco, and Rosa de dos aromas. In addition to more than a hundred plays and scripts, he also wrote two volumes of short stories and nine novels, and worked randomly as a stage director.