Career
As a novelist he is noted for integrating his deep knowledge of Mesoamerican and Guatemalan history and geography into his stories, often setting his novels in colorful Guatemalan jungle settings including its biologically rich flora and fauna. Macal was born on June 28, 1916 in Guatemala City. He is considered one of the most popular novelists in Central American literature.
His most acclaimed work is his novel Louisiana mansión del pájaro serpiente which has been translated into several languages.
His personality, like that of men born in the early decades of the twentieth century, was influenced by the long dictatorship of Jorge Ubico, the revolution of 1944 and by the so-called liberation movements which occurred in 1954. Macal also served some time as a diplomat, and was a consul in Barcelona, Spain.
Later Rodriguez Macal, settled in Santiago, Chile for many years, and was a frequent collaborator of the great newspaper El Mercurio. Later, residing in Guatemala, he was the director of Diario de Centroamérica.