Antonio de Sosa was taken captive in Algiers in April 1577. He was Cervantes’s companion and can also be considered his first biographer (and even his hagiographer), as his Diálogo de los mártires (Dialogue of the martyrs) gives an account of Cervantes’s second attempted escape in Algiers, that of 1577. Antonio de Sosa’s work, published by Diego de Haedo in 1612, is clearly aimed at encouraging readers to support the captives in Algiers and at spurring the king to complete his control of the Mediterranean begun at the Battle of Lepanto.
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