One of Spain's great writers: Who is Pedro Antonio de Alarcon?

(1833-1891) He was born in Granada, in the town of Guadix. He was the son of a poor family with many children. He completed his law studies at the University of Granada with great difficulty. He became interested in politics at a young age. In 1853, he went to Madrid and directed the magazine El Latigo (The Whip), the publication of the society called the Young Liberals League, which advocated radical ideas. After a duel incident, his political thoughts changed greatly; He became a staunch conservative and advocate of religion. He went to Morocco, which started to fight with Spain in 1859, as the first war correspondent in the modern sense. He made long trips to France and Italy. On his return, he moved away from politics and devoted himself to literature. He was elected to the Spanish Royal Academy in 1875. After a while, he announced that he had resigned from writing as a result of heavy criticism directed at him. He died in Madrid after a long illness.

Alarcon, who had an extreme fondness for literature while still a student, started working on a series of novels while studying law. However, his reputation as a writer came after he published his observations on the war in Morocco. Between 1872 and 1884 he entered a period of intense writing. It was during this period that he wrote his masterpiece, El sombrero de tres picos ("The Three-Cornered Hat"). This work, which tells a humorous love story, later became the subject of various adaptations, including ballet.

Alarcon became one of the great writers of his country with the Three-Cornered Hat, which is the most read and loved novel in Spanish literature after Don Quixote.

WORKS:

El final de Norma, 1851;

Diario de un testigo en la guerra de Africa, 1859;

El sombrero de tres picos, 1874, (“The Three-cornered Hat”);

El capitan Veneno.