# Miguel de Cervantes — Don Quixote character guide

> Miguel de Cervantes in Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Cervantes, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

**First appearance:** 0003-don-quixote

## Snapshot

The author whose own life — soldier, captive, reader, playwright — shadows the novel, and who writes himself into its frame as narrator.

## Who they are

Cervantes is the book's presiding intelligence, a man who grew up in a Spain where chivalry had died and printing had flooded the market with romances, and who read everything from ballads to chronicles in his youth. His tension is that he writes a book mocking knight-errantry while clearly loving the very romances he mocks, and he stages that ambivalence by pretending his manuscript was written by an Arab historian and translated by a nameless connoisseur. He matters because his layered narrators — the translator, the found manuscript, the doubts about Cide Hamete — make the question of who is telling the truth part of the story itself.

## In the story

### [Translator's Preface](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_quixote_se/chapters/translator-s-preface)

The original author of Don Quixote, whose work is being translated and introduced.

### [About This Translation](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_quixote_se/chapters/i-about-this-translation)

Author of Don Quixote; the translator discusses the original Spanish text and the challenges of rendering it faithfully in English.

### [Dedication](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_quixote_se/chapters/part-i-dedication)

Author of the work, humbly dedicating it to the Duke of Béjar.

### [Some Commendatory Verses](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_quixote_se/chapters/part-i-some-commendatory-verses)

Referenced as the 'sage author' in Amadís's poem, standing without peer.

### [Of the diverting and important scrutiny which the curate and the barber made in the library of our ingenious gentleman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_quixote_se/chapters/part-i-vi)

Mentioned as the author of 'Galatea,' a book spared by the curate.

### [Dedication](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_quixote_se/chapters/part-ii-dedication)

Author of the dedication, addressing the Count of Lemos and discussing his works.

### [Endnotes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_quixote_se/chapters/endnotes)

Referenced as the author of Don Quixote, with commentary on his literary techniques and satirical aims.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_quixote_se/characters/cervantes
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_quixote_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/don_quixote_se/characters