José Echegaray

Infobox Writer
name = José Echegaray y Eizaguirre
awards = awd|Nobel Prize in Literature|1904
birthdate = birth date|1832|4|19|mf=y
birthplace = Madrid, Spain
deathdate = death date and age|1916|9|14|1832|4|19
deathplace = Madrid, Spain
occupation = Dramatist and Mathematician
nationality = Spain
genre = drama

José Echegaray y Eizaguirre (April 19, 1832 Madrid, Spain—September 14, 1916) was a Spanish civil engineer, mathematician, statesman, and the leading Spanish dramatist of the last quarter of the 19th century.

Along with the Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904, making him the first Spaniard to win the prize. His most famous play is "El gran Galeoto", a drama written in the grand nineteenth century manner of melodrama. It is about the poisonous effect that unfounded gossip has on a middle-aged man's happiness. Echegaray filled it with elaborate stage instructions that illuminate what we would now consider a hammy style of acting popular in the 19th century. Paramount Pictures filmed it as a silent with the title changed to "The World and His Wife". His most remarkable playsFact|date=December 2007 are "Saint or Madman?" ("O locura o santidad", 1877); "Mariana" (1892); "El estigma" (1895); "The Calumny" ("La duda", 1898); and "El loco Dios" (1900).

The Echegaray street named after him in Madrid is famed for its Flamenco taverns.

External links

* [http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1904/index.html Nobel Prize bio]
* [http://www.angelfire.com/ego2/olko/cgi-bin/eizaguirre-bio.html Elsevier Publishing Co. bio]