biography
| name: |
Cervantes (Saavedra), Miguel de
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pronunciation:
[servanteez], Span [thair
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1547–1616)
|
| biography:
| Writer of Don Quixote, born in Alcalá de Henares, C Spain. He entered the army in Italy, being wounded in the Battle of Lepanto. He was captured by Barbary pirates on his way back to Spain and enslaved in Algiers until ransomed in 1580. His first major work was the Galatea, a pastoral romance (1585), and he wrote many plays, only two of which have survived. He became a tax collector in Granada (1594), but was imprisoned for failing to make up the sum due to the treasury. Tradition maintains that he wrote Don Quixote in prison at Argamasilla in La Mancha. When the book came out (1605), it was hugely popular. He wrote the second part in 1615, after several years of writing plays and short novels. |
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