Pío Baroja y Nessi (1872-1956), considered by some the most influential Spanish novelist of the twentieth century, was born in the Basque region of northern Spain and raised largely in Madrid, Spain’s capital, where his family moved when he was seven and where he lived for most of his life. Baroja studied medicine, and worked briefly as a doctor before giving up this profession, first to run a bakery owned by his family and then to write. He published his first two books, a collection of short stories and a novel, La casa de Aizgorri (The House of Aizgorri) in 1900. A prolific writer, Baroja ultimately produced more than 100 books, including over 60 novels as well as volumes of memoirs and collections of short stories, essays, and poems. Among his best known works is a trilogy entitled La lucha por la vida (1904; The Struggle for Life, 1922-24), of which The Quest is the first part: La busca (1904; The Quest, 1922); Mala hierba (1904; Weeds, 1923); Aurora roja (1904; Red Dawn, 1924). Like The Quest, most of Baroja’s individual novels form part of a series of connected works. Altogether Baroja wrote 11 trilogies, as well as a series of 22 novels and novellas Memorias de un hombre de acción (1913-35; Memoirs of a Man of Action) based on the life of a nineteenth- century Spanish adventurer to whom he was distantly related.
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