Olga Nolla

In 2001 Olga Nolla went to New York to visit her children. She died on July 30, 2001, at the age of 63, from a heart attack while she slept. Before leaving she told her literary agent and friend of thirteen years, Caridad Sorondo, that if something were to happen to her to make sure that the novel was published. Her last novel, Rosal de papel, was published posthumously about a year after her death. Nolla had also told her friend that she wanted to die while dreaming.

During the 1990s, Olga Nolla wrote and produced a televised course on Puerto Rican narrative for the Ana G. Méndez Foundation. She also participated in many literary courses and was a strong proponent of literature by women, especially in Puerto Rico.

In 1978 she began working at Colegio Universitario Metropolitano (now called Universidad Metropolitana (UMET), a university belonging to the Sistema Universitario Ana G. Méndez. She started as a script writer and long distance teacher of the Center for Televised Studies (now called Long Distance Learning, SEDUE). Nolla was responsible for developing scripts for courses on Occidental Civilizations. She also helped in the production. She later taught Spanish, Art History, and Humanities at the Humanities Department of the UMET, where she worked for 20 years. During this time she wrote the majority of her literary works.

Olga Nolla collaborated in many activities and organizations. She participated in the Federation of Puerto Rican Women and was editor of its magazine Palabra de Mujer (Word of a Woman) from 1976 to 1977. She also belonged to Junta Editorial of Revista Cupey, UMET's magazine, since its beginnings in 1984. She directed the magazine from 1984 to 1997 and also contributed to it by publishing essays and literary criticism. Many writers also contributed to this magazine.

In 1967 Nolla started her Masters in Literature along with her cousin, writer Rosario Ferré at the University of Puerto Rico. She specialized in Hispanic Literature. Nolla and Ferré created and directed a literary magazine in 1972 called Zona de carga y descarga which was in circulation until 1975. The purpose of this magazine was to circulate the literary works of Nolla, Ferré and other writers in the 1970s. During this period she began and completed her first book of poems, De lo familiar.

Both she and Ferré graduated in 1960 from Manhattanville College.

Olga Nolla (September 18, 1938 – July 30, 2001) (full name Olga Nolla Ramírez de Arellano) was a Puerto Rican poet, writer, journalist, and professor.

Olga Nolla was born September 18, 1938, in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico to José Antonio Bernabé Nolla Cabrera, an agronomist, and Olga Ramírez de Arellano, also a poet with several publications. She was member of a prominent Puerto Rican family that participated in politics and the arts. She is related to author Rosario Ferré (cousin) and ex-governor of Puerto Rico Don Luis A. Ferré, her uncle by marriage. Her parents moved to Mayagüez when she was five years old.