SPAIN said Tuesday it had unearthed the apparent remains of a literary giant, “Don Quixote” author Miguel de Cervantes, in a Madrid convent almost 400 years after his death.

    Researchers said they were “convinced” that among crumbling remains in a crypt they had found Cervantes, hailed by academics as the father of the modern novel.

    Forensic anthropologist Francisco Etxeberria said that after a yearlong search his team had positively identified “some fragments” of the author who died in April 1616, the same month as William Shakespeare.

    Don Quixote — the delusional country gentleman who sets out to right wrongs as a self-styled knight — had a far-reaching impact on world literature, academics say.

    Though there is no genetic proof of the find at this stage, Etxeberria’s team of anthropologists and archaeologists said they were confident of the claim on the basis of documentary research. They based their findings on fragments found underground in the crypt of a church in the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians in central Madrid, Etxeberria said.

    Archeologist Almudena Garcia-Rubio said there was “no confirmed genetic identification” of the human remains. But Etxeberria said: “We are convinced that we have among these fragments something of Cervantes.”(SD-Agencies)