(baptized Sept. 28, 1547, Sevilla, Spain
died 0441; 1614, Mexico) Spanish novelist.
Descended from Jews who had been forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism, he expressed many aspects of the experiences and feelings of the New Christians in 16th-century Spain. His most important literary work is Guzmán de Alfarache (1599, 1604), one of the earliest picaresque novel s, which brought him fame throughout Europe but little profit.