Lazarillo de Tormes

(full title, The Life of Lazarillo of Tormes, His Fortunes and Adversities; La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades), a Spanish novella published anonymously in Burgos, Alcalá de Henares, and Antwerp in 1554. It depicted the fate of a boy who involuntarily became a rogue in his harsh struggle with poverty and hunger.

One of the most vivid works of Renaissance literature, Lazarillo de Tormes laid the foundation for the picaresque novel, which was a source for the European realistic novel. The novella was banned by the Inquisition in 1559, and from 1573 until the early 19th century it was published in Spain in a “corrected” version. The anonymous Second Part of Lazarillo de Tormes, inferior to the first artistically, appeared in 1555. In 1620, Juan de Luna published a new second part that intensified the book’s anticlerical satire. Continuations and imitations of Lazarillo appeared until the mid-20th century. The novella was first published in Russian in 1775.