María de Zayas y Sotomayor was a Spanish author of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries. Her baptism was known to have taken place in Madrid on September 12, 1590, and she was almost certainly born in that city a few days earlier. Very little is known about her life; even her date of death remains a mystery. Death certificates bearing the name María de Zayas have been found in both 1661 and 1669, and it is unknown which (if either) refers to the author.

Works Consulted

Women Writers of the Seventeenth Century. Eds. Katharina M. Wilson and Frank J. Warnke. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1989.