Nobel Prize Recipient. Jacinto Benavente y Martínez received world-wide recognition after being awarded the 1922 Nobel Prize in literature. He was given the coveted award, according to the Nobel Prize committee, “for the happy manner in which he has continued the illustrious traditions of the Spanish drama.” He received two nominations; the 1921 single nomination was submitted by 21 members of the Royal Spanish Academy. Born the youngest son of a well-known pediatrician, he was in a household that enjoyed the theater, literature, wealth and social ease among authors and actors. By sixteen, he had read most of his father’s huge library and could speak several languages. Starting in 1883, he studied law at the University of Madrid, but after his father’s 1885 death, he inherited a comfortable income, thus he left school to travel to France, England, and Russia. Upon returning to Spain, he began contributing to newspapers and magazines and doing some editing. He also took some bit parts to learn the art of acting. His writing career began in 1892 with a collection of plays, “The Fantastic Theatre,” but his more successful was a three-act play “Another’s Nest” in 1894, which followed with “High Society” in 1896. His plots varied from comic to drama with his actors performing roles of people from all classes of society with social satire. His one-act comics were usually set in the same imaginary town. In 1893 he published his first collection of poems and a series of women’s letters published between 1892 to 1893 and again in 1902. All were well-received by the public. “The Governor's Wife” in 1901 was a three-act comedy that was successful. His 1907 play “Bond of Interest’ has been performed more times than any other of his plays. His 1913 play “The Misbeloved,” which was a rural tragedy in the classical manner about the love between a man and his stepdaughter. This play established Benavente's international reputation that led him to the Nobel Prize in 1922. His last play was in 1954, “Sons, Fathers of Their Parents.” From 1920 to 1954, he traveled to Latin America, the United States, and the USSR. During the Spanish Civil War, to his liberal friends’ dismay, he supported Franco. A prolific writer, his collection of 174 plays was published in ten volumes between 1941 and 1955. He never married and sources hint to him having an alternate lifestyle.