José Augusto Trinidad Martínez Ruiz, better known by his pseudonym Azorín (; June 8, 1873 – March 2, 1967), was a Spanish novelist, essayist and literary critic. As a political radical in the 1890s, he moved steadily to the right. In literature he attempted to define the eternal qualities of Spanish life. His essays and criticism are written in a simple, compact style. Particularly notable are his impressionistic descriptions of Castilian towns and landscapes. Early life and education José Martínez Ruiz was born in the village of Monòver, Spain in the province of Alicante on 8 June 1873. He was the oldest of nine children and enjoyed reading in his youth. His father, a middle-class lawyer, was an active conservative politician and later became a representative and mayor, and a follower of Romero Robledo. His mother, a landowner, was born in nearby Petrel. From the age of eight, until he was 16, he attended a boarding school run by the Escolapius Fathers (Piarists) in his father's home town of Yecla in the province of Murcia. From 1888 to 1896 he studied law at the University of Valencia, but did not complete his studies. Thereafter he began to write, publishing a monograph on literary criticism in 1893. Here he began to write for local newspapers, contributing articles to the radical journal El pueblo, edited by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. He became interested in the ideas of Karl Krause, who argued that man could be reformed through education, and that openness to other nations' cultures could overcome national conservatism. In 1895, Ruiz published Anarquistas literarios and Notas sociales, in which he presented the main anarchist theories of the time. During this time he was a political radical. Ruiz became an admirer of the liberal Prime Minister Antonio Maura, who fought the culture of "caciques" (local political bosses), and who had become the figurehead of a youth movement, the Mauristas, who wanted him as a new head of state of Spain at a time of substantial resentment of King Alfonso XIII. Career, writing and political evolution Ruiz’s journalism developed on moving to Madrid in 1896. He wrote for the republican newspaper El País until he was dismissed for his radicalism in February 1897. He also wrote for the Paris-based anarchist magazine La Campaña, and other Spanish journals including El Progreso ("Progress"), and El Imparcial ("The impartial"). His output during this period displayed anti-establishment views,