Valle, Rafael Heliodoro (1891–1959)

Rafael Heliodoro Valle (b. 3 July 1891; d. 29 July 1959), Honduran diplomat, professor, journalist, poet, historian, and literary critic. Valle, a descendant of José Cecilio del Valle, was born in Tegucigalpa but received his higher education in Mexico, where he spent much of his adult life. He served the Honduran government in diplomatic posts in Central America, Mexico, and the United States. As Honduran ambassador in Washington, D.C., in the early 1950s, he was especially active in promoting inter-American cultural affairs. He also was a leading journalist in Mexico, where he served as editor of El Universal and Excelsior (1921–1925). Later, as a professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, he wrote prolifically. Among the works he produced were the six-volume La anexión de Centro América a México (1921–1927), Historia de las ideas contemporáneas en Centro América (1960), and many other historical books and articles dealing especially with Honduras and Mexico. His journalistic and literary writings won him the María Moors Cabot Prize of the Inter-American Press Association in 1940. Valle died in Mexico.

See alsoJournalism; Literature: Spanish America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Oscar Acosta, Rafael Heliodoro Valle, vida y obra, 3d ed. (1981).

Additional Bibliography

Chapa Bezanilla, María de los Ángeles. Rafael Heliodoro Valle, humanista de América. México City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2004.

Perdomo T., Claudio Roberto. El pensamiento de Rafael Heliodoro Valle. Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Secretaría de Cultura, Artes y Deportes, Dirección General del Libro y El Documento, 1997.

                             Ralph Lee Woodward Jr.