Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra; September 29, 1547 – April 23, 1616 was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. Cervantes was one of the most important and influential persons in literature and the leading figure associated with the cultural flourishing of sixteenth century Spain (the Siglo de Oro). His novel Don Quixote is considered as a founding classic of Western literature and regularly figures among the best novels ever written; it has been translated into more than sixty-five languages, while editions continue regularly to be printed, and critical discussion of the work has persisted unabated since the 18th century. His work is considered among the most important in the universal literature. He has been dubbed el Príncipe de los Ingenios (the Prince of Wits).
Cervantes, born in Alcalá de Henares, was the fourth of seven children in a family whose origins may have been of the minor gentry. The family moved from town to town, and little is known of Cervantes's early years. Cervantes made his literary début in 1568. By 1570 he had enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish infantry regiment and continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by barbary pirates on his return home. He was ransomed by his parents and the Trinitarians and returned to his family in Madrid.
In 1585, Cervantes published a pastoral novel, La Galatea. Because of financial problems, Cervantes worked as a purveyor for the Spanish Armada, and later as a tax collector. In 1597 discrepancies in his accounts of three years previous landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville. In 1605 he was in Valladolid, just when the immediate success of the first part of his Don Quixote, published in Madrid, signaled his return to the literary world. In 1607, he settled in Madrid, where he lived and worked until his death. During the last nine years of his life, Cervantes solidified his reputation as a writer; he published the Exemplary Novels (Novelas ejemplares) in 1613, the Journey to Parnassus (Viaje del Parnaso) in 1614, and in 1615, the Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses and the second part of Don Quixote. Carlos Fuentes noted that, "Cervantes leaves open the pages of a book where the reader knows himself to be written."
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