Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes was born in 1547 in Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid, the son of a barber-surgeon who moved often in search of work. Little is known of his schooling. As a young man he went to Italy and joined the Spanish army. At the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, against the Ottoman fleet, he was wounded twice in the chest and lost the use of his left arm. In 1575, sailing home, he was captured by pirates and held for five years in Algiers, where he made four failed attempts to escape before he was ransomed. Back in Spain he wrote plays and a pastoral novel, La Galatea, and worked as a purchasing agent and tax collector; problems with his accounts led to jail more than once. Don Quixote, about a country gentleman who reads so many tales of chivalry that he sets out as a knight with his squire Sancho Panza, was published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. It was immediately popular and is often called the first modern novel. Cervantes also wrote the Exemplary Novels. He died in Madrid in 1616.

Miguel de Cervantes is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: A Catholic; some scholars suggest one or both parents may have been of Jewish ancestry (New Christians). Source: Wikipedia