From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Rafael Yglesias (born May 12, 1954, in New York City) is an American novelist and screenwriter. His parents were the novelists Jose Yglesias and Helen Yglesias. The blogger and journalist Matthew Yglesias is his older son; his younger son, Nicholas, is also a novelist and has applied to become a police cadet. Yglesias was born and raised in Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood, and now lives in Greenwich Village. He attended the Horace Mann School ...