El Buscón (full title Historia de la vida del Buscón, llamado Don Pablos, ejemplo de vagamundos y espejo de tacaños (literally: History of the life of the Swindler, called Don Pablos, model for hobos and mirror of misers); translated as Paul the Sharper or The Scavenger and The Swindler) is a picaresque novel by Francisco de Quevedo. It was written around 1604 (the exact date of completion is not known) and published in 1626 by a press in Zaragoza (without Quevedo's permission), though it had circulated in manuscript form previous to that.

The only novel written by Quevedo, it is presented in the first person singular and chronicles the adventures of Don Pablos, a buscón or swindler. Pablos sets out in life with two aims: to learn virtue and to become a caballero (gentleman). He fails miserably at both.

El Buscón has been considered a profound satire on Spanish life, but also as a literary exercise for Quevedo, in that he was able to utilize word-play and verbal flourishes and his skill as a literary caricaturist.El Buscón also propounds the notion that children of parents without honor will never be able to achieve honor themselves.

Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Santibáñez Villegas (14 September 1580 – 8 September 1645) was a Spanish nobleman, politician and writer of the Baroque era. Along with his lifelong rival, Luis de Góngora, Quevedo was one of the most prominent Spanish poets of the age. His style is characterized by what was called conceptismo. This style existed in stark contrast to Góngora's culteranismo.

Quevedo was born in Madrid into a family of hidalgos from the village of Vejorís, located in the northern mountainous region of Cantabria. His family was descended from the Castilian nobility.

Quevedo's father, Francisco Gómez de Quevedo, was secretary to Maria of Spain, daughter of emperor Charles V and wife of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, and his mother, Madrid-born María de Santibáñez, was lady-in-waiting to the queen. Quevedo matured surrounded by dignitaries and nobility at the royal court. Intellectually gifted, Quevedo was physically handicapped with a club foot, obesity, and myopia. Since he always wore pince-nez, his name in the plural, quevedos, came to mean "pince-nez" in the Spanish language.