Emilio Belaval Maldonado

{{Short description|Puerto Rican judge (1903–1972)}}

{{infobox officeholder

|name=Emilio Belaval Maldonado

|office=Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico

|appointer=Luis Muñoz Marín

|term_start=1953

|term_end=1967

|predecessor=A. Cecil Snyder

|successor=Hiram Torres Rigual

|birth_date={{birth date|1903|11|8}}

|birth_place=Fajardo, Puerto Rico

|death_date={{death date and age|1972|3|30|1903|11|8}}

|death_place=San Juan, Puerto Rico

|education=University of Puerto Rico (JD)

}}

Emilio Belaval Maldonado (November 8, 1903 – March 30, 1972) was a Puerto Rican lawyer who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico from 1953 to 1967.

Belaval Maldonado was born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, and graduated earning a Juris Doctor from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law in 1927. In the field of law, he was a district judge, and later, an associate justice of the Supreme Court appointed by Puerto Rico Governor Luis Muñoz Marín and Secretary of the Hayes Committee, who was in charge of the investigation of the events of the Ponce massacre.{{cite web | title=Language and Literature: Belaval Maldonado Emilio S. | website=enciclopediapr.org | date=13 March 2014 | url=http://www.enciclopediapr.org/ing/article.cfm?ref=09121704 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140313001112/http://www.enciclopediapr.org/ing/article.cfm?ref=09121704 | archive-date=13 March 2014 | url-status=dead | access-date=3 January 2020}}

From a young age, Belaval Maldonado felt a love for writing and his first verses appeared in a Puerto Rico illustrated magazine, when he was just 14 years old. Belaval Maldonado devoted himself to the cultivation of the tale, from their initial two books: El Libro Azul (1918) and Cuentos para Celegiales (1922). In his stories he reflects about the Puerto Rican social reality. He was also president of Ateneo Puertorriqueño a cultural institution.{{cite book | last=Cortés | first=E. | last2=Cortes | first2=E. | last3=Barrea-Marlys | first3=M. | author4=ProQuest (Firm) | title=Encyclopedia of Latin American Theater | publisher=Greenwood Press | series=ABC-Clio ebook | year=2003 | isbn=978-0-313-29041-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WSS3v-czhPgC&pg=PA420 | access-date=3 January 2020 | page=420}}

Belaval Maldonado died on March 30, 1972, at age 68 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.{{cn|date=January 2025}}