Editing Mateo Alemán

{{Short description|Spanish novelist and writer}}
: ''Aleman is sometimes used to refer to German.''
{{infobox person/Wikidata|fetchwikidata=ALL}}

'''Mateo Alemán y del Nero''' (Seville, September 1547 – [[Mexico City]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Garfield |first=Evelyn Picon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IF9PvgdvhR4C&dq=Mateo+Alem%C3%A1n+1615&pg=PA119 |title=Las literaturas hispánicas: without special title |date=1991 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |isbn=978-0-8143-1864-5 |language=es}}</ref> 1614<ref>{{Cite web |date=2011-07-30 |title=Un historiador halla pruebas de que Mateo Alemán murió en 1614 en la extrema pobreza |url=https://sevilla.abc.es/sevilla/sevi-historiador-halla-pruebas-mateo-201107300000_noticia.html |access-date=2023-05-21 |website=sevilla |language=es}}</ref>) was a Spanish [[novelist]] and writer.

==Biography==
Alemán was born in [[Seville]], Andalucía, where he graduated from [[university of Seville|the University]] in 1564.  He later studied at [[Salamanca]] and [[Alcalá de Henares|Alcalá]], and from 1571 to 1588 held a post in the treasury; in 1594 he was arrested on suspicion of [[wiktionary:malversation|malversation]], but was speedily released. According to some authors, he was descended from Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism after 1492, and one of his forebears had been burned by the [[Inquisition]] for secretly continuing to practice Judaism.  In 1599, he published the first part of ''[[Guzmán de Alfarache]]'', a celebrated [[picaresque novel]] which passed through no less than sixteen editions in five years; a spurious sequel was issued in 1602, but the authentic continuation did not appear until 1604.{{sfn|Fitzmaurice-Kelly|1911}}

[[Image:Grabado Guzmán Alfarache.jpg|thumb|Frontispiece from a 17th-century edition of ''Guzmán de Alfarache'', [[Antwerp]], 1681]]
In 1571, Alemán married, unhappily, Catalina de Espinosa, and was constantly in money difficulties, being imprisoned for debt at [[Seville]] at the end of 1602.{{sfn|Fitzmaurice-Kelly|1911}}

In 1608, Alemán emigrated to [[North America|America]], and is said to have carried on business as a printer in Mexico, where he is assumed to have remained for the rest of his life.  His ''Ortografía castellana'' (1609), published in Mexico, contains ingenious and practical proposals for the reform of Spanish spelling.  Nothing is recorded of Alemán after 1609, but it is sometimes asserted that he was still living in 1617.{{sfn|Fitzmaurice-Kelly|1911}}

==Works==
In addition to the works already mentioned, Alemán is the author of a life (1604) of [[St. Anthony of Padua]], and versions of two odes of [[Horace]] bear witness to his taste and metrical accomplishment. His most famous work, however, is ''[[Guzmán de Alfarache]]'', which was translated into French in 1600, into Italian in 1606, into German in 1615, into English in 1622 by [[James Mabbe]], and into [[Latin]] in 1623.{{sfn|Fitzmaurice-Kelly|1911}}

==References==

[[File:Ortografia castellana Aleman 1609.jpg|thumb|right|Mateo Alemán's work "Ortografía castellana", printed in México. Biblioteca Digital Hispánica (Biblioteca Nacional de España, Spanish National Library).]]

{{reflist|2}}

;Attribution
*{{EB1911|first=James |last=Fitzmaurice-Kelly |wstitle=Alemán, Mateo}} Endnotes:
**{{cite book|first=J. |last=Hazañas y la Rua |title=Discursos leidos en la Real Academia Sevillana de Buenas letras el 25 de marzo de 1892 |location=Seville |year= 1892|language=es}} 
**{{cite book|first=J. Gestoso y |last=Perez |title=Nuevos datos para ilustrar las biografías del Maestro Juan de Malara y de Mateo Alemán |url=https://archive.org/details/HCa066004 |location=Seville |year=1896|language=es}}
==External links== 

*{{Gutenberg author|id=49350}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aleman, Mateo}}
[[Category:Spanish novelists]]
[[Category:Spanish Baroque writers]]
[[Category:Spanish Golden Age]]
[[Category:1547 births]]
[[Category:1610s deaths]]
[[Category:Writers from Seville]]
[[Category:Spanish people of Italian descent]]
[[Category:Spanish people of Jewish descent]]
[[Category:University of Alcalá alumni]]
[[Category:University of Salamanca alumni]]
[[Category:University of Seville alumni]]
[[Category:People imprisoned for debt]]
[[Category:Spanish male dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:Spanish male novelists]]
[[Category:16th-century Spanish dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:16th-century Spanish novelists]]
[[Category:16th-century Spanish writers]]
[[Category:16th-century Spanish male writers]]
[[Category:17th-century Spanish dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:17th-century Spanish novelists]]