Playwright, poet, novelist, and actor, Alfonso C. Hernández is perhaps one of the most versatile but least known of the Chicano writers. He is restlessly innovative in his drama and likewise always in search of new horizons in his poetry. Although his poetic output is important, his most significant contribution to Chicano letters is through drama. In this medium, his fertile imagination and scenographic talent are best employed, creating bizarre characters that move within an ambience that often partakes of the world of dreams, the subconscious, and the supernatural. His dramatic output is entirely in English, but even his published plays have heretofore not been staged, probably because of their graphic sexual elements.

He was born on 18 September 1938 in Atotonilco, Mexico, to Alfonso Hernández Velázquez, landowner, and Sabina Cázeres. The younger Alfonso's literary interests were awakened and nurtured early in...