Ana María Matute Ausejo was an internationally acclaimed Spanish writer and member of the Real Academia Española. In 1959, she received the Premio Nadal for Primera memoria. The third woman to receive the Cervantes Prize for her literary oeuvre, she is considered one of the foremost novelists of the posguerra, the period immediately following the Spanish Civil War.

The Miguel de Cervantes Prize is awarded annually to honour the lifetime achievement of an outstanding writer in the Spanish language.