Emilia Pardo Bazán was born in 1851 in La Coruña, a city in Galicia in Spain. Her father, a political figure, and her mother encouraged her to devote her time to reading and writing, and they arranged for her to be freed of domestic responsibilities. Moreover, the family library was well supplied. Pardo Baz´n read the classics, Don Quixote, and accounts of the French revolution, which fascinated her.

She travelled in Europe, became acquainted with Zola's work and the Naturalist movement as well as with Victor Hugo, whom she met.

In a periodical published in Madrid, she published some articles later collected in 1882 in a volume entitled La cuestión palpitante, the mission of which was to explain the Naturalist movement. The publication of this book caused a scandal, and Pardo Bazán's horrified husband demanded that she give up writing and repudiate her published works. Consequently, Pardo Bazán decided to separate from her husband.

Pardo Bazán continued writing. In 1886 she met Zola, and through the intermediary of the French became acquainted with modern Russian novels. The next year she published a book entitled La revolución y la novela en Rusia. She publicly denounced the inequities in educational opportunities for males and females. Despite strong sexist opposition, she was appointed the first woman to hold a chair in literature at the Universidad Central de Madrid. She died in Madrid in 1921.

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