MIAMI (AP) — Delia Fiallo, a native of Cuba who was considered the mother of Latin America’s telenovelas and wrote dozens of the popular television soap operas, has died at her home in Coral Gables, Florida. She was 96 when she died Tuesday, five days before her 97th birthday. Her caregiver did not give a cause of death but says she died surrounded by her children. Fiallo’s TV hits included “Cristal,” “Kassandra” and “Leonela.” Those and others of her shows were translated into languages such as Japanese and Czech and reached millions of people in more than a hundred countries. Fiallo finished “Cristal,” the last of her 43 telenovelas, more than three decades ago.
