Antonio Machado

Antonio Machado ranks among Spain’s greatest 20th-century poets. He was born in 1875 in Palacio de las Duenas on his family’s country estate. When he was still a child, Machado moved with his family to Madrid, where his father had obtained a professorship. After Machado’s father died suddenly in 1893, the family fell from financial security. Machado and his brother Manuel turned to writing and acting and circulated among fellow bohemians, including poets Rubén Darío and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In 1899 the brothers traveled to Paris and found work as translators at Garnier publishers. While in Paris Machado met the Irish writer Oscar Wilde. His poetry is still widely read and celebrated today.