Miguel de Cervantes

Cervantes fled Spain in 1569 for Rome, worked in a cardinal's household, then enlisted with the Spanish Navy and lost the use of his left arm at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. He soldiered on until 1575, when Barbary pirates captured him; five years in captivity, then ransom, then Madrid. His first real novel, La Galatea, came in 1585, but he kept working as a purchasing agent and tax collector to survive. Part One of Don Quixote appeared in 1605 - tradition holds he conceived it in a cave prison in Argamasilla de Alba - and Part Two in 1615. He also published twelve Exemplary Novels, a long poem, eight plays and interludes; his final novel, The Travails of Persiles and Sigismunda, came out a year after he died in 1616. Spanish is still called "the language of Cervantes."