April 23

Dia del Libro

April 23rd marks International World Book Day, a festivity that has been widely celebrated in Spain since 1930.  This event is particularly popular in Catalonia, since it coincides with the holiday honoring the city's patron, St. Jordi.  On April 23rd, it is customary to exchange roses and books among loved ones.  In Spain, the prestigious Cervantes Award, the highest honor given to any Hispanic writer, is presented on this day.  In 1995, UNESCO declared it a yearly worldwide event to promote the love of reading and respect for copyright laws.  It was chosen on this day because it coincides with the death of two of the most important literary figures of all time, Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare.  In 2001, Madrid was the first city to be named World Book Capital (the city of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates was the honored city in 2019).

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Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra^[b] (/sərˈvæntiːz/;^[7] US: /sərˈvɑːnteɪz/; Spanish: [miˈɣel de seɾˈβantes saaˈβeðɾa]; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS)^[4] was a Spanish writer who is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's preeminent novelists. His novel Don Quixote has been translated into over 140 languages and dialects; it is, after the Bible, the most-translated book in the world.^[8]

Don Quixote, a classic of Western literature, is sometimes considered both the first modern novel^[9] and the best work of fiction ever written.^[10] Cervantes' influence on the Spanish language has been so great that the language is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes").^[11] He has also been dubbed El príncipe de los ingenios ("The Prince of Wits").^[12]

In 1569, in forced exile from Castile, Cervantes moved to Rome, where he worked as chamber assistant of a cardinal. Then he enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish Navy infantry regiment and continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by Barbary pirates. After five years of captivity, he was released on payment of a ransom by his parents and the Trinitarians, a Catholic religious order, and he returned to his family in Madrid.

In 1585, Cervantes published La Galatea, a pastoral novel. He worked as a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada and later as a tax collector for the government. In 1597, discrepancies in his accounts for three years previous landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville.

In 1605, Cervantes was in Valladolid when the immediate success of the first part of his Don Quixote, published in Madrid, signalled his return to the literary world. In 1607, he settled in Madrid, where he lived and worked until his death. During the last nine years of his life, Cervantes solidified his reputation as a writer, publishing Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels) in 1613, Viaje del Parnaso (Journey to Parnassus) in 1614, and Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses and the second part of Don Quixote in 1615. His last work, Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (The Travails of Persiles and Sigismunda), was published posthumously in 1617.

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William Shakespeare (bapt. 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616)^[a] was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist.^[2][3][4]He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".^[5][b] His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 39 plays,^[c] 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.^[7]

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.^[8][9][10] Such theories are often criticised for failing to adequately note that few records survive of most commoners of the period.

Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613.^[11][12][d] His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best work produced in these genres. Until about 1608, he wrote mainly tragedies, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language.^[2][3][4] In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy in his lifetime. However, in 1623, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, John Heminges and Henry Condell, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that included all but two of his plays.^[13] The volume was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Jonson presciently hails Shakespeare in a now-famous quote as "not of an age, but for all time".^[13]

Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, Shakespeare's works have been continually adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain popular and are studied, performed, and reinterpreted through various cultural and political contexts around the world.