nickname: Cripple of Lepanto

Spanish novelist, playwright, and poet, the creator of Don Quixote, and the most famous figure in Spanish literature.

Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares, a town near Madrid, into a family of the minor nobility. After studying in Madrid (1568-69), he went to Rome in the service of Guilio Acquavita. In 1570 he became a soldier and took part in the sea battle at Lepanto (1571), during which he received a wound that permanently maimed his left hand.

In 1575 he set out with his bother Rodrigo on the galley Sol for Spain. The ship was captured by the Turks and the brothers were sold into slavery. Cervantes was released in 1580, and after the return to Madrid he held several temporary administrative post. In 1584 he married 18 years younger Catalina de Salazar y Palacios, whom he left three years later. During the next 20 years he led a nomadic existence, working also as a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada and a tax collector. He was imprisoned at least twice because of fiscal irregularities. In 1606 Cervantes settled permanently in Madrid, where he remained the rest of his lfe. He died on April 23, 1616.

Cervantes started his writing career in Andalusia in 1580. His first major work was the GALATEA (1858), a pastoral romance. Tradition maintains, that he wrote Don Quixote in prison at Argamasilla in La Mancha. However, Cervantes stayed poor until 1605, when the first part of Don Quixote appeared. Though it did not make him rich it brought him international appreciation as a man of letters. He wrote also many plays, only two of which have survived, short novels, and the second part of Don Quixote (1615).

"The truth lies in a man's dreams... perhaps in this unhappy world of our. a wose madness in better than a foolish sanity."

Don Quixote: Originally conceived as a comic satire against the chivalric romances. Central characters are the elderly, idealistic knight, who sets out on his old horse Rosinante to seek adventure, and the materialistic squire Sancho Panza, who accompanies his master from failure to another. Only at his deathbed Don Quixote confesses the folly of his past adventures. - Influence is seen among others in the works of Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, also in the works of James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges.

Selected works:

• EL TRATO DE ARGEL, 1582-87 - The Traffic of Algiers
• LA NUMANCIA, 1582-87 - Numantia
• LA GALATEA, 1585
• EL INGENIOSO HIDALGO DON QUIXOTE DE LA MANCHA I, 1605; part II, 1615 - Don Quiote manchalainen, surullisen hahmon ritari, - Don Quixote film version: from France in 1902 ans 1908, Italy in 1910, France in 1911, Usa in 1915, Brittain in 1923, Denmark in 1926, France in 1933, Spain in 1947, USSR in 1957, Britain in 1972, and Britain (ballet version with Nureyev) in 1975.
• NOVELLAS EJEMPLARES, 1613 - Exemplary Tales - Novelleja
• OCHO COMEDIAS Y OCHO ENTREMESES NUEVOS, 1615 - Eight Comedies and Eight New Interludes
• LOS TRABAIOS DE PERSILES Y SIGISMUNDA, 1616 - The Labors of Persiles and Sigismunda: A Northern Story