In June of 1950, Altolaguirre returned to Spain for the first time since the Civil War. Although his main purpose was to visit his brothers, he also took the opportunity to resume contact with old friends, both in Madrid (Vicente Aleixandre, Gerardo Diego, Dámaso Alonso, Carlos Rodríguez-Spiteri, José Luis Cano, and Carlos Bousono), and in Malaga (Bernabé Fernández -Canivell, José Antonio Muñoz Rojas, Alfonso Canales, and José Salas). As a result of those contacts with his friends, he became a regular correspondent from 1952 on for Caracola, a journal published in Malaga by José Luis Estrada and Bernabé Fernández-Canivell.

In November of 1952, his daughter Paloma married Manuel Ulacia. Esteve. Luis Cernuda, José Moreno Villa, and Emilio Prados were among the witnesses to the wedding. Shortly afterwards, Altolaguirre underwent surgery for a renal disease; this experience led to a new theater project, El espacio interior. The first of Paloma’s four children was born the following year.

From 1953 to 1955, Altolaguirre settled with his second wife in Havana, where he resumed his friendship with Lezama Lima and the poets grouped around the journal Orígenes; he also wrote reviews for the weekly magazine Carteles. Moreover, the journal México en la Cultura published in 1955 the verses that the poet had written on the death of his friend, Moreno Villa. Meanwhile, his friends at the Caracola published his Poemas en América(1955), in Malaga. This book of poems was the last published by the writer while he was alive, and it was the first of his books to appear in Spain after he was forced into exile.

In 1957, Altolaguirre began preparing an edition of his complete poems, reassumed the idea of writing his memoirs entitled “El caballo griego,” wrote a new play, Las maravillas, and he also began to promote the creation of a theater school. Unfortunately, his death in July of 1959 put an end to all those projects.