On this day...

Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes was born in 1547. Little is known about Cervantes early life, bar baptism records, and the first glimpse we get of him is as a 22 year-old soldier in the Spanish navy. Hvaing been shot with three bullets in battles against the Turks, he was captured by Barbary pirates, ransomed after 5 years in captivity. Back in Spain, Cervantes married a girl 18 years his junior and worked sporadically, first as a purchasing agent for the Armada, and later as a tax collector. It wasn't long before Cervantes was again incarcerated, this time for irregularities in his accounts.

The adventure of his life was such, that any autobiographical work would have become an instant hit, but as it was, Cervantes turned his hand to ficiton, writing over 20 plays, and publishing his first major work 'La Galatea'. Yet his masterpiece, and, many argue, the first modern novel, is picaresque writing 'Don Quixote', called by Dostoevsky, 'the ultimate and most sublime work of human thinking'.

Yet Cervantes has interesting parallels with a writer closer to home. It seems that Shakespeare was influenced by Cervantes' work, so much so, that the Spanish author has even entered the Shakespeare authorship question, with some believing they were the same person, others believing that Francis Bacon wrote both. To complete the link, they both died on the same day, April 23rd 1616, leading UNESCO to designate it the International Day of the Book.

Lost in translation?...

From Chekhov to Ibsen, from Dumas to Cervantes, European literature is a genre which has never disappointed. Yet although widely read since the Middle Ages, is it losing a place in today's market, increasingly flooded by transatlantic offerings? Thriller writers John Grisham and Stephen King both appear more popular than dusty, old classics in bookshops, but, in fact the sale figures do not hold this to be true. Russian literatary favourites, Tolstoy and Pushkin triumph over both in the best-selling fiction authors of all time, the former shifting over 413 million sales and the latter 357 million. In their new podcast, the Guardian explores the issues surrounding translated texts, and suggests what to read next

On this day...

Miguel de Cervantes' 'Don Quixote' is first thought to have been published in Madrid in 1605. Although many aspects are disputed, right through from the date of publication to even the authorship, it is widely regarded as the first modern novel in Western culture, and the finest work in the Spainish literary canon. The novel, which Fyodor Dostoyevsky described as 'the ultimate and most sublime work of human thinking', belongs to the picaresque genre; depicting the tale of a rougish hero with satirical wit. The idea of ''Don Quixote' has translated into other areas of modern culture. Recently voted 'The Greatest Book of All Time' by the Nobel Institute, it is referenced several other important works, including 'The Three Musketeers', and 'The Pickwick Papers'. The novel also contains many 'firsts'; a woman complaining of her menopause, someone with an eating disorder, and the coined phrase 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. Even ingrained in the English language, it is responsible for adjective 'quixotic'; the desire to perform acts of chivalry in a radically impractical manner.