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Professor of Spanish Edwin Williamson looks at the life of Spanish novelist Cervantes, who died 400 years ago just 11 days before Shakespeare, and at the enduring power and influence of Don Quixote.

Cervantes’ great novel is generally seen as laying the foundations of the modern novel. Williamson looks at the varied life of the author, including as a soldier, a slave of Muslim pirates, and tax collector for the Armada, and talks a little about the novel, Don Quixote.

Williamson holds the King Alfonso XIII Chair of Spanish at Oxford and has been a professorial fellow of Exeter College since 2003. His books include The Penguin History of Latin America and the biography, Borges: A Life. He has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to write a book on Don Quixote and how Cervantes came to write the first modern novel.

Programme of Spanish literature and culture.