Mexican novelist, playwright, journalist Vicente Lenero dies at 81

MEXICO CITY – Renowned Mexican author, playwright and journalist Vicente Lenero has died. He was 81.

Rafael Tovar y de Teresa is president of Mexico’s National Council for Culture and the Arts. He tells Milenio TV that Lenero died Wednesday.

Born June 9, 1933, in the western city of Guadalajara, Lenero was known for works such as “Los Albaniles,” or “The Bricklayers,” which portrayed 1970s Mexican society through the lives of construction workers.

His credits also included a stage adaptation of “The Children of Sanchez” and the screenplay for “The Alley of Miracles” (1995), starring Salma Hayek.

As a journalist in the 1970s, he helped found the influential newsweekly Proceso.

Tovar y de Teresa called Lenero “one of the great figures of Mexican letters of the 20th century.”