José Martínez Ruiz

José Augusto Trinidad Martínez Ruiz, better known by his pseudonym Azorín (Spanish pronunciation: [aθoˈɾin]; June 8, 1873, Monòver – March 2, 1967, Madrid), was a Spanish novelist, essayist and literary critic. A political radical in the 1890s, he moved steadily to the right. In literature he attempted to define the eternal qualities of Spanish life. His essays and criticism are written in a simple, compact style. Particularly notable are his impressionistic descriptions of Castilian towns and landscape.

Early life and education

José ("Pepe") Martínez Ruiz was born in Monovar, a village in the province of Alicante on 8 June 1873. Known as Pepe, he was the oldest of nine children but a lonely child who loved reading. His father, a middle-class lawyer, was an active conservative politician and later became a representative and mayor, and a follower of Romero Robledo). His mother, a landowner, was born in nearby Petrer.

From the age of eight, until he was 16, he attended a boarding school run by the Escolapius Fathers (Piarists) in his father's home town of Yecla in the province of Murcia, a time he recalled as opposed to “truth, rebelliousness, and freedom” in Memorias inmemoriales, but also nostalgically in Las confesiones de un pequeño filósofo.