This Mexican editor and novelist, born on November 15, 1776
in Mexico City, was known as the Mexican Thinker (El pensador
mexicano) which was the title of the newspaper he founded
when freedom of press was established in Cadiz. Hi first received
education in Tepoztlan and later went to Mexico City to study
Latin and then theology. He started out as a journalist and
became famous as an outspoken propagandist and pamphleteer.
His critical reviews landed him in prison and even led to
his excommunication. After Mexico’s Independence, he
continued his career as a journalist. He is remembered as
having written the first Spanish American Novel, entitled
El periquillo sarniento, The Itching Parrot, in 1816,
a novel written in the picaresque genre. He died in 1827.
Other well known works and titles by this author:
El hermano del perico, 1824 (The
Brother of the Parakeet)
Las conversaciones del Payo y el Sacristán, 1824 (Conversations
between the Peasant and the Sacristan)
El Correo Semanario de México, 1826 (Weekly Correspondence
of Mexico)
La quijotita y su prima, 1818
La vida y hechos del famoso caballero D. Catrín de
la Fachenda, 1832.
