Ramón María del Valle-Inclán y de la Peña (born in Vilanova de Arousa, Galicia, Spain, on October 28, 1866, and died in Santiago de Compostela on January 5, 1936) was a Spanish dramatist, novelist, and member of the Spanish Generation of 98. His work has been described by literary critics as radical in its subversion of traditional Spanish theatre in the early 20th century. He influenced later generations of Spanish dramatists and is honored on National Theatre Day with a statue in Madrid.
Biography
Ramón María del Valle-Inclán was the second son of Ramón Valle-Inclán Bermúdez and Dolores de la Peña y Montenegro. As a child he lived in Vilanova and A Pobra do Caramiñal, and then he moved to Pontevedra in order to study high school. In 1888 he started to study law at University of Santiago de Compostela, and there he published his first story, Babel, at the Café con gotas magazine. He left his studies and moved to Madrid in 1890, where he wrote for various periodical newspapers such as El Globo, La Ilustración Ibérica or El Heraldo de Madrid.
He traveled to Mexico in 1892 to write for El Universal, El Correo Español and El Veracruza, before the following year returning to Pontevedra to write his first book, Femeninas (Feminine), published in 1895.
In 1895, he moved to Madrid again, working as an official at the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts. In Madrid he did some translations of José Maria de Eça de Queirós, Alexandre Dumas, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Paul Alexis and Matilde Serao. In spite of his economic difficulties, he started to have a name in the tertulias (literary gatherings) of many culturally significant coffeehouses in Madrid, such as Café Gijón, and to be noticed for his dandy attitude and his eccentric looks.
