Miguel Cervantes author page

Miguel de Cervantes biography

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) was a Spanish novelist, poet and playwright whose work transformed European prose. Wounded while serving at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, he was later captured by corsairs and held in Algiers from 1575 to 1580 before returning to Spain.

He wrote across forms, producing pastoral, picaresque and short fiction alongside theatre and verse. His twelve Novelas ejemplares appeared in 1613, followed by the long poem Viaje del Parnaso in 1614 and the collection Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses in 1615.

Cervantes’s major work is Don Quixote, a two-part novel that interrogates chivalric romance and the act of reading itself. Part One was published in 1605 and Part Two in 1615, and the book’s blend of satire, psychology and narrative play has made it a touchstone of modern literature.

His final romance, Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, was published posthumously in 1617. Cervantes died in Madrid on 22 April 1616.