Miguel de Cervantes was a Spanish novelist born near Madrid in 1547. He fought in the Battle of Lepanto where he was badly wounded, and was later captured by Barbary pirates and held as a slave for five years. After his release, de Cervantes struggled financially and held various jobs while beginning his writing career. He published Don Quixote in 1605, which became the first modern novel and worldwide bestseller, though it did not enrich him during his lifetime. De Cervantes died in 1616, leaving a legacy as one of the most important authors in modern literature.

1. • The son of a deaf surgeon,
• Miguel de Cervantes was born near Madrid in 1547.
• He became a soldier in 1570 and was badly wounded in the Battle of Lepanto.
• Captured by the Turks in 1575, de Cervantes spent five years in prison.
• He was freed in 1580 and returned home.
• De Cervantes finally achieved literary success in his later years, publishing the first part of Don
Quixote in 1605. He died in 1616.
• In late 1580s, de Cervantes began working for Spanish Armada as a commissary. It was a thankless
task, collecting grain supplies from rural communities. Many did not want to provide the goods, and
de Cervantes ended up in prison on two occasions because of charges of mismanagement. During
this trying time, he began writing some of literature's greatest masterpieces.
• De Cervantes published the first part of Don Quixote in 1605. The novel tells the story of an elderly
man who becomes so enamored by old stories of brave knights that he seeks out his adventures.

2. • For nearly his entire life, Miguel de Cervantes struggled financially. His father,
Rodrigo, deaf from birth, worked as a surgeon—a lowly trade at the time. De
Cervantes and his family moved around several times in his youth, as his father
searched for better work prospects.
• De Cervantes was an avid reader as a child—a skill he was reportedly taught by a
relative. Whether he had much formal education has been a subject of debate among
scholars. Some believe that de Cervantes may have been taught by the Jesuits
based on some of his writings, but others dispute this claim.
• Poetry and War
• The first published works by de Cervantes appear in 1569. He contributed some
poetry to a memorial collection after the death of Elizabeth of Valois, the wife of
Spanish king Philip II. By the following year, de Cervantes had put his words aside
and, instead, picked up a weapon: He had joined a Spanish military unit in Italy.
• Known for his bravery, de Cervantes took part in the Battle of Lepanto. Stationed on
the ship La Marquesa, he fought against the Ottoman Empire and sustained serious
injuries in the conflict: He suffered two chest wounds and his left hand was completely
maimed. Despite his disability, de Cervantes continued to serve as a soldier for
several more years.

3. • In 1575, de Cervantes and his brother,
Rodrigo, tried to return to Spain, but they were
captured by a group of Turkish ships during
their voyage. De Cervantes spent five years as
a prisoner and a slave, and made several
failed attempts to escape during his
imprisonment. He finally went home after a
ransom was paid for his release.

4. Don Qixote
• De Cervantes published his first novel, La Galatea, in
1585. This pastoral romance failed to make much of a
splash. Around the same time, de Cervantes tried to
make it the then-lucrative world of theater (plays were
an important form of entertainment in Spain at the
time, and a successful playwright could earn a good
living). Unfortunately, de Cervantes did not achieve
fortune and fame with his plays. In fact, only two of his
plays survived.

5. • The title character soon gets lost in his own fantasy
world, believing he is one of these knights, and
convinces a poor peasant, Sancho Panza, to serve
as his squire. In one scene, Don Quixote even fights
a windmill, mistaking it for a beast. Quixote regains
his senses before the novel ends.
• The became the world's first best-seller, eventually
being translated into more than 60 different
languages. De Cervantes published the second
part of the story in 1615.

6. Legacy
Don Quixote did not make de Cervantes wealthy; at the time,
authors did not receive royalties for their works. De
Cervantes continued to write after the success of Don
Quixote, but he failed to finish The Labors of Persiles and
Segismunda before his death. De Cervantes died on April
23, 1616, in Madrid. He was buried on the grounds of a
convent there, in an unmarked grave.
Since his passing, de Cervantes has been credited with
writing the first modern novel. His work has inspired
countless other authors, including Gustave Flaubert, Henry
Fielding and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. And the story of Don
Quixote has been retold in many ways, including in the
popular musical The Man of La Mancha and in an artwork by
Pablo Picasso.