Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, born in Valencia and trained as a lawyer, turned early to journalism and republicanism. Founding the newspaper El Pueblo in 1894, he created a powerful mass political movement ("Blasquismo") that profoundly shaped public life in Valencia through fierce anti-clericalism and street protests. His uncompromising commitment was marked by three prison terms and periods of exile in Italy and France. This combative spirit deeply influenced his literary work: novels like La barraca (1898) and Cañas y barro (1902) dissect social injustice in rural Spain. After withdrawing from active politics in 1908, his horizons broadened. International successes such as Sangre y arena (1908) and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1916) established his worldwide fame, particularly in the United States. Living in exile in France from 1923, he fought against Primo de Rivera's dictatorship through polemical writings like Una nación secuestrada (1924). He died in Menton in 1928.