Alfonso Cuesta y Cuesta (Cuenca, Ecuador, 1912 – Mérida, Venezuela, 1991) was an Ecuadorian novelist, short story writer, poet and university professor. At the Central University of Venezuela he studied law, philosophy and literature, later earning postgraduate degrees in Santiago, Chile and Madrid, Spain. He taught high school level when he returned to Cuenca, and later became rector of the prestigious Benigno Malo School. Around this time, he became known as a writer and formed the Elán group. His first poetry book was Motivos nuestro (1930) and his first book of short stories was Llegada de todos los trenes del mundo (1932), for which he is recognized as one of the best representatives of the indigenist movement in early 20th century Ecuadorian literature. In 1940 Cuesta again left Ecuador and moved to Caracas, Venezuela to teach at the high school named Liceo Fermín Toro, from there he went on to teach at the Central University of Venezuela, he also chaired the literature department at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of the Andes.
Works
- Motivos nuestro (1930)
- Lo mejores cuentos ecuatorianos (1948)
- Los Hijos (1962) – received honorable mention at the Casa de Las Américas Prize (Havana, Cuba, 1963)
- La tinaja (1959)
- El caballero (1953) – First Prize in the Annual Short Story Contest organized by the newspaper El Nacional of Caracas, Venezuela.
- Llegada de todos los trenes del mundo: cuentos (1932)
- La medalla ; El vidrio roto ; El muro (1978)
- Antología de cuentos (1993)
- Cantera (1993)
His stories have been published in the following anthologies:
- Los mejores cuentos ecuatorianos (Quito, 1948)
- Antología del relato ecuatoriano (Quito, 1973)
- Cuento de la generación del 30 (Guayaquil, s.f.)
- Antología básica del cuento ecuatoriano (Quito, 1998).