Miguel de Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, which features the lead character Don Quixote fighting windmills.

He does other things.

The author, I have barely slept tonight, is up against the mighty psychiatry.

I spent a long time researching around this book; I did take Spanish courses in school for that matter.

The book was published in two editions in Spain, beginning 1605.

     It is considered the first modern novel.

I like avant-garde stuff or near avant-garde stuff.

400 years later we still have social criticism and apparently much of this model was aimed at poking fun of the chivalry system of then-Spain.

He wrote it while in prison.

Fyodor Dostoevsky planned out his books while walking in a Siberian prison.

It is a very long book.

As far as fighting windmills, probably what it is most remembered for, he thinks they are giants.