author
José Francisco de Isla
1703–1781
A sharp-witted Jesuit writer from eighteenth-century Spain, he became famous for turning a comic eye on bad preaching and literary excess. His best-known work, Fray Gerundio de Campazas, made him one of the era’s most memorable satirists.
2 Audiobooks
Historia del famoso predicador Fray Gerundio de Campazas, alias Zotes (2 de 2)
by José Francisco de Isla
Historia del famoso predicador Fray Gerundio de Campazas, alias Zotes (1 de 2)
by José Francisco de Isla
About the author
Born in 1703 in the León region of Spain, José Francisco de Isla entered the Society of Jesus while still young and built a reputation as both a preacher and a man of letters. He wrote with energy, humor, and a clear taste for satire, and readers often compare his comic spirit to the line of Spanish writing shaped by Cervantes.
He is best remembered for Fray Gerundio de Campazas, a lively satirical novel that mocked the empty rhetoric and showy style of some preachers of his day. The book drew wide attention and also controversy, which helped secure his place in Spanish literary history.
Like many Jesuits of his generation, he was affected by the expulsion of the order from Spain and spent his later years in Italy. He died in Bologna in 1781, leaving behind a reputation as a clever, fearless critic of pomposity and affectation.