Don Quixote

About Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes (15471616) is renowned for his masterpiece Don Quixote. Born in Alcalá near Madrid Spain he spent much of his life in obscurity and poverty. After time as a soldier and a prisoner of pirates he began to write plays including Los Tratos de Argel and La Numancia (both 1582). La Galatea (1585) a pastoral novel was his first attempt at fiction. After the breakdown of his marriage to Catalina de Salazar Cervantes suffered financial difficulties and was imprisoned several times. During this period he wrote Part I of Don Quixote which was published in 1605 receiving immediate success; Part II was published in 1615. He was also an accomplished short-story writer (Novelas Ejemplares 1613) poet (Viaje del Parnaso 1614) and playwright writing dozens of plays out of which only a handful survive including Ocho Comedias y Ocho Entremeses (1615). His final novel Los trabajos de Persiles y Segismunda completed days before his death was published posthumously (1616). Despite the success of Don Quixote he was never a wealthy man and died in Madrid in April 1616.   Ilan Stevans (abridgement and new introduction) is Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College USA. He is publisher of Restless Books and host of the NPR show In Contrast. He has rendered Jorge Luis Borges Pablo Neruda and Juan Rulfo into English; Shakespeare Emily Dickinson and Richard Wilbur into Spanish; Isaac Bashevis Singer from Yiddish; Yehuda Amichai from Hebrew; and Miguel de Cervantes Dickens and Antoine de Saint Exuperys The Little Prince into Spanglish. His award-winning books adapted for radio TV and theatre have been translated into 20 languages. In 2018 he adapted Don Quixote de la Mancha into a best-selling graphic novel (illustrated by Venezuelan cartoonist Roberto Weil).