José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi (1776-1827)

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.