José Martínez Ruíz, Alias "Azorín", Was a Spanish novelist, essayist and literary critic, Member of the Generation of ‘98

The year 1898 was a fateful moment in our History. Spain signs the Treaty of Paris, losing Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, its last overseas colonies and the remains of the onetime first global empire.

Our country seems to have lost its “pulse”, as Francisco Silvela declared in an article published on the 16th of August that year in the Spanish newspaper El Tiempo. As a positive countermove, however, it’s at this time that the Generation of ’98 enters the literary fray, which marks the beginning of the modernization of Spanish literature, and they present themselves as a loud call to attention to the crisis our nation is going through. It is comprised of a pleiad of illustrious writers such as Miguel de Unamuno, Antonio Machado, Pío Baroja, and Azorín, born José Augusto Trinidad Martínez Ruiz on June 8th , 1873 in the town of Monóvar, Alicante.

Read the full article here: ABC Cultura 

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