Like many returning veterans throughout history, Cervantes found his country unable and unwilling to help him return to society. He was a wounded war hero and was held captive for 5
years, during which time Cervantes experienced both the depravity and the
humanity of an enemy culture. Ransomed at last, he regained a homeland that
seemed to have forgotten his sacrifices and that was intent on covering the
patent failures of its domestic and foreign policy with a patchwork of
religious fanaticism and ethnic scapegoating.
In a time and a culture ( early 17th
c Spain) when xenophobia was the national religion, when the poor were assumed
to have deserved their lot, and when women were thought to be naturally
subservient to men, Cervantes regularly wrote with compassion and humor to explore the feelings and
experiences of religious and ethnic minorities, social outcasts, old people and women.
Who will be our Cervantes? We need one.
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