Spanish · 1547–1616
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, playwright and poet, born in Alcalá de Henares in 1547. As a young man he served as a soldier and was wounded at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, which left his left hand useless. In 1575 Barbary corsairs captured him, and he spent five years as a captive in Algiers before his family ransomed him. Back in Spain he worked as a supply commissary and tax collector, was jailed more than once for money troubles, and wrote plays, poems and the pastoral romance La Galatea. His masterpiece, Don Quixote, appeared in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. It follows a gentleman who mistakes romances for reality, and it is often called the first modern novel. He also wrote the Exemplary Novels, a collection of short fiction, and the novel Persiles and Sigismunda, published after his death. He died in Madrid in 1616. Writers from Fielding to Dostoevsky and Kafka drew on his work.