Book description
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HAROLD BLOOM
Widely regarded as the world's first modern novel, and one of the
funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles
the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don
Quixote de La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they
travel through sixteenth-century Spain. Unless you read Spanish,
you've never read Don Quixote.
Miguel de Cervantes was born on September 29, 1547, in Alcala de
Henares, Spain. At twenty-three he enlisted in the Spanish militia and
in 1571 fought against the Turks in the battle of Lepanto, where a
gunshot wound permanently crippled his left hand. He spent four more
years at sea and then another five as a slave after being captured by
Barbary pirates. Ransomed by his family, he returned to Madrid but his
disability hampered him; it was in debtor's prison that he began to
write Don Quixote. Cervantes wrote many other works, including poems
and plays, but he remains best known as the author of Don Quixote. He
died on April 23, 1616.
Edith Grossman is the award-winning translator of major works by
many of Latin America's most important writers. Born in Philadelphia,
she attended the University of Pennsylvania and the University of
California at Berkeley before receiving her PhD from New York
University. She lives in New York City.
