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1[[quoteright:270:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unamuno.jpg]]
2Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (born 29 September, 1864 - died 31 December 1936) was a prominent Spanish writer and philosopher, considered a sort of proto-[[UsefulNotes/{{Existentialism}} Existentialist]]. Unamuno was a part of the Generation of 98 (which was invented only post-factum), a group of Spanish authors whose shared conscience was shaped by the UsefulNotes/SpanishAmericanWar. Unamuno himself had a pretty successful career as a public intellectual, he for a long time was the rector of Salamanca University, the oldest in Spain and one of the oldest in the entire world.
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4His main novel is the experimental "nivola" (how he called his novels) ''Niebla''. It is a [[PostModernism post-modernist]] work where he questions the relationship between the life and art and tries the border between fiction and reality. At some stage the fourth wall in the novel is shattered into pieces. He used a similar approach in many of his later works.
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6His philosophy is centered around the conflict between reason and religion, and specially the fear of death and the role that both approaches take on the matter. He was an [[UsefulNotes/{{Atheism}} Atheist]], which was ''extremely'' rare and frown upon in early 20th century Spain, but at the same time, he couldn't deny the powerful allure of religion and how it tackles the fear of death with the promise of an eternal afterlife, which has led authors to call him a Christian Existentialist (albeit not the same kind as those examples who were actual Christians). He's usually considered a pessimist thinker, who embodies better than most the state of mind his country went through during his lifetime.
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8And this is not to say little. Unamuno's political position evolved along with Spain throughout his life: initially tepid with Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, he turned against him and supported the Second Spanish Republic, then became disappointed with it and supported the Nationalist rebels during the infamous UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar, then became disillusioned with them too and switched to the Republic again, and died shortly after. It's heavily speculated that he got severely depressed in his last days, which put him in a state of mind that at the very least accelerated his demise.
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10!! Bibliography
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12[[index]]
13* ''Paz en la guerra'' (1897)
14* ''Amor y pedagogía'' (1902)
15* ''Literature/{{Niebla}}'' (1914)
16* ''Literature/AbelSanchez'' (1917)
17* ''La tía Tula'' (1921)
18* ''San Manuel Bueno, mártir'' (1930)
19[[/index]]

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