Miguel de Unamuno was born on 29 September 1864 in Spain, a country whose citizenship he held throughout his life. He wrote in Spanish and also used Basque, and his work came to be associated with the Generation of '98. That association placed him among a distinct current in Spanish letters, one to which he contributed across an extraordinary range of forms.

Unamuno was at once a philosopher, essayist, novelist, poet, and playwright, and he sustained all of these roles while working as a university teacher. His philosophical essay Del sentimiento trágico de la vida appeared in 1912, and it stands among his most substantial works. In 1914 he published the novel Niebla, and he continued as a novelist with Abel Sánchez in 1917 and La tía Tula in 1921, demonstrating a consistency of output that ran across more than two decades of literary production.

His institutional presence in Spanish life was considerable. He served as rector of the University of Salamanca across three separate periods, a role that anchored him to that city and to Spanish academic life more broadly. He also entered political life directly, serving as a deputy of the Constituent Courts of the Second Spanish Republic. His standing extended beyond Spain as well: the University of Grenoble awarded him an honorary doctorate, a recognition of his reach as a thinker and writer.

Unamuno spent his final years in Salamanca, the city with which his long career as rector and teacher had become so closely identified. He died there on 31 December 1936, having served three terms at the helm of its university and having left behind a body of work that ranged from philosophy and the novel to poetry and the stage.