Luis Coloma

Who was Luis Coloma?

Luis Coloma was a Spanish author known for creating the character Ratoncito Pérez. Coloma was also a prolific writer of short stories and his complete works, which includes his novels, biographies, and other works, have since been collected in a multi-volume set. He studied at the University of Seville, where he graduated with a Master's degree in law, although he never got to practice law. In 1908 Coloma became a member of the Real Academia.

In 1880 Coloma began work on Pequeñeces on behalf of the Society of Jesus. The work is a political satire of the high Madrid society in the years previous to the Bourbon Restoration, and is considered to be one of his more well known works. This work has received much criticism, as some felt that it was overly pessimistic and "too narrowly bigoted in tone to have any lasting vogue".

Coloma promoted literature but was critical of novels in general, as he felt that they gave an overly idealized portrayal of human life and sentimentalized religion. In his later years Coloma only published biographies and writings of a historical nature, such as Jeromín, which focused on Don Juan de Austria.