Pio Baroja was born on the twenty-eighth of December in the year 1872 in the Basque Country (Rouco). At the age of fifteen, his family moved to Madrid because his father, Don Serafín, was transferred there when he had obtained a seat in the Geographic and Statistical Institute (Caro Raggio). Madrid is where Baroja grew up to learn about medicine. After receiving his medical degree from the University of Madrid in 1893, he practiced medicine for a short time in a village in northern Spain. Disgusted by country life, he returned to Madrid to manage the family bakery alongside his brother, Ricardo (Book Rags).
             After working with his brother, he ran unsuccessfully on two occasions for a seat at the Cortes, the Spanish Parliament, as a Republican. As the Spanish American War rolled arou nd in 1898, Baroja began to protest against "Spain's social abuses and the corrosive influence of the Catholic Churchâ€" (Book Rags). He was known throughout history as an anarchist who believed that all forms of government are oppressive and undesirable and should be abolished. He began to write about the injustices within his country. He got his start from writing newspaper articles and moved onward to produce novels.
             After writing so many articles and letters, Pip Baroja moved away from the business scene and became more dedicated to writing (Caro Raggio). Soon he realized that his real passion was to write novels. He became one of the most influential and popular Spanish novelists of the twentieth century. The writing of Pio Baroja mainly was considered "forceful though loosely constructed, characterized by a spare yet lyrical style and an undercurrent of social discontentâ€" (Columbia Encyclopedia). His many books revolved around harsh criticism of his country, Spain, and a pessimistic view of the human existence.
             His first novel was La Casa de Aizgorri (The House of Aizgorri, 1900), which is part of a trilogy called La ...