His outspoken presence in Spanish public life endeared him to Spaniards but not to the leaders he criticized, both in direct statements and in his novels, whose philosophical musings challenged the status quo of an autocratic Spain painfully undergoing a series of political upheavals. He attained distinction in literature as a major figure in the Generation of 1898 and for launching Spanish writing into the modern era.

Placed under house arrest, the by-now popular and controversial Unamuno died of a heart attack a few months later, on New Year’s Eve, 1936. Unamuno was re-elected rector, then removed once again, in 1936, this time for denouncing General Francisco Franco’s Falangists. He returned to Salamanca in 1930 to experience the repeat of his former fate. After being appointed rector of the university in 1901, he was abruptly dismissed in 1914 for reasons still unclear, and in 1924 he was exiled for opposing the military government of Primo de Rivera. Six years later he became chair of Greek language and literature at Spain’s oldest university, the University of Salamanca.

He received his early education in Bilbao and his doctorate in philosophy and letters from the University of Madrid in 1884. Unamuno was born to a religious Roman Catholic household on September 29, 1864, in Bilbao, capital of the Basque region of Spain. Idle and wealthy Augusto Pérez falls in love with two women and speculates about the nature of love and the reality of fiction before being killed off by his creator, Miguel de Unamuno, who appears as a character in his own novel.Įvents in History at the Time the Novel Takes PlaceĬited by many as the greatest intellectual Spain has ever produced, Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) made his mark in philosophy, poetry, fiction, drama, travel writing, autobiography, and journalism.

An experimental novel set in an indefinite place and time published in Spanish (as Niebla) 1914 in English in 1928.

Fog miguel de unamuno