Ginés Pérez de Hita

Born in Mula, Murcia, around 1544, Ginés Pérez de Hita was a Spanish novelist and poet active in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Details of his life are scarce, but major reference sources agree that he is chiefly remembered as the author of Historia de los vandos de los Zegríes y Abencerrages, better known as Guerras civiles de Granada (The Civil Wars of Granada).

The first part of that work appeared in 1595, with a later part published in 1619. The book became famous for blending romance, Moorish and Christian courtly culture, and historical material connected with Granada, and it is often described as an early Spanish historical novel.

Some accounts say he may have taken part in campaigns against the Moriscos, which may have informed his writing, but the surviving facts about his life remain limited. Even so, his work had a long afterlife and is still read as an important example of how history and fiction came together in Spanish literature.