Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616) used a life in which he was battered by fate to create his masterwork Don Quixote. Cervantes had his left hand maimed, was captured by pirates, and sold into slavery. Cervantes was also imprisoned for falling as a tax collector, and was excommunicated by the church for inadvertently stealing corn that belonged to the organization. Cervantes began work on Don Quixote while imprisoned; the first part of the book came out in 1597, the second in 1615.
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