Matilde Elena López was born in San Salvador on February 20, 1919. In the Decade of the years 40s was part of a movement seeking to overthrow President Maximiliano Hernández Martínez.
He was then exiled in the neighboring country of Guatemala where he started his studies in journalism at the University of San Carlos. At that time it also provided its services to the Guatemalan Government of that time; but once ousted that Government went to Ecuador, where he studied until graduating as doctor of philosophy and letters, in 1957.
A year later he lived in Panama and later returned to El Salvador, where he worked as a Professor of the University of El Salvador since 1960. He also taught at the José Simeón Cañas Central American University and was Dean of the Faculty of Humanities of the University “Nueva San Salvador”.
After these events, Matilde Elena López participated in several floral games where he obtained important prizes, among which we can mention the following:
- First prize floral games of Chiquimula (poetry, Guatemala, 1951)
- First prize floral games of the city of San Miguel (1960)
- First prize for prose and an honorable mention in poetry in the floral games IV of Nueva San Salvador (1960)
- Second place in the branch of brief narrative of the floral games of Nueva San Salvador (1961)
- First Prize national competition of peace (poetry, Guatemala, 1953)
- First prize games floral Agostinos (San Salvador, 1957, where it won third place with his poem I busco your roots)
- Contest “Centenary of Suchitoto” (essay, 1959)
- Literary contest of La Prensa Gráfica (1959, 1964, 1966)
- Unique Prize (shared) test “Adrian Recinos” in the contest “September 15” of Sciences, letters and fine arts (Guatemala, 1962
- Contest “Dante Alighieri” (essay, Guatemala, 1964)
- Floral Games of Sonsonate (February 1965)
- Columbia University contest (tale, New York, 1973)
- Second place in the Juegos Florales de Quetzaltenango (theatre, Guatemala, 1976).
Some of his works are the following:
- Masferrer, alto pensador de Centroamérica (ensayo, 1954)
- Interpretación social del arte (ensayo, 1965)
- Dante, poeta y ciudadano del futuro (ensayo, 1965)
- Estudio-prólogo a las Obras escogidas de Alberto Masferrer (1971)
- Estudio-prólogo a las Obras escogidas de Claudia Lars (1973)
- Estudios sobre poesía (ensayo, 1973)
- La balada de Anastasio Aquino (teatro, 1978)
- Los sollozos oscuros (poesía, 1982)
- El verbo amar (poesía, 1997)
- Ensayos literarios (recopilación, 1998).
In 2005, he received the national prize for literature awarded by CONCULTURA in El Salvador.
Matilde Elena López died in San Salvador on March 10, 2010, due to lung problems caused by old age.
