Luis Vélez de Guevara

Born in Écija, Spain, in 1579, Luis Vélez de Guevara became one of the notable dramatists and prose writers of the Spanish Golden Age. He studied at the University of Osuna and later served powerful patrons, experiences that helped carry him into literary life in Madrid.

He is often placed among the important followers of Lope de Vega, and sources describe him as a highly productive playwright with a particular gift for vivid characters. Alongside his many plays, his best-known prose work is El diablo cojuelo (1641), a fantastical and satirical novel that gave him lasting fame beyond the stage.

Vélez de Guevara died in Madrid in 1644. Today he remains valued for the energy of his writing, his baroque imagination, and his place in the rich world of seventeenth-century Spanish literature.