bio notes:
born as: Juan Latino

One of the first major African authors in the age of printing, who lived from approximately 1518 to 1596. Latino, also known as Juan de Sessa, was born into captivity, the son of African slaves in the household of Gonzalo Ferdinando de Cordova Duca de Sessa (hence Juan's name). Sponsored by his master, Juan studied at the University of Grenada, eventually was set free, and received the chair of grammar at his university. He was the first published African poet in Europe, the first African to be published in Europe in Latin (thus his later name, Latino), and the second African to be published in Europe, after Leo Africanus. Cervantes mentions Latino in his classic work *Don Quixote* as "El Negro Juan Latino," and regarded him as the epitome of a pedantic scholar (not without some derision, as Cervantes himself was not as fluent in Latin as he would have liked to be)