Confessions of a Little Philosopher

Author's name: Athorin

What became known in Spanish history as the “Catastrophe of 1898,” when Spain lost its last overseas colonies and declined from a great empire to a small state, had a profound impact on Spanish society, especially among the intellectual elite. Poets, writers, philosophers, and artists confronted Spain’s social and political reality, forming a group whose mastermind, José Luis Martínez, known by his pseudonym Azorín, called the “Generation of 98.” This book, written in 1903, immediately after the catastrophe, is not a traditional autobiography, but rather a collection of literary impressions in which Azorín, in his own style, reconstructs the most important and decisive moments of his childhood and youth. The reader will encounter places where the writer lived and personalities who influenced him.

During the early stages of his life. Athorin described the contents of the book, saying: “I will not recount the events of my childhood and adolescence, moment by moment or event by event. I do not wish to be dogmatic or clerical. I will choose from my memories those

Disjointed, luminous moments, to make them easier to write down on paper, and for the reader to receive with a flexible, gradual, and innocent feeling... Confessions of a Young Philosopher are portraits of the life of a writer whose production has shaped...

Intellectual and literary source of inspiration for the generation of 98 and the writers who came after them

Early 20th century in Spain