Federico García Lorca

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director born on 5 June 1898 and killed on 19 August 1936. He became famous worldwide as a key figure of the Generation of '27, a group of poets who brought European movements like symbolism, futurism, and surrealism into Spanish writing.

He first gained fame with Romancero gitano, a 1928 poetry collection about life in his home region of Andalusia. His work mixed traditional Andalusian themes with avant-garde styles. After spending 1929 to 1930 in New York City—later documented in the posthumous book Poeta en Nueva York—he went back to Spain and wrote his most famous plays: Blood Wedding in 1932, Yerma in 1934, and The House of Bernarda Alba in 1936.

García Lorca was homosexual and struggled with depression after his relationship with sculptor Emilio Aladrén Perojo ended. He also had a close emotional bond with Salvador Dalí, who later said he rejected Lorca's sexual advances.

He was killed by Nationalist forces at the start of the Spanish Civil War. His remains have never been recovered, and the reason for his murder is still debated. Some think he was targeted for being gay or a socialist, or both, while others believe a personal quarrel was the cause.

Early years

He was born in Fuente Vaqueros, a small town 17 kilometers west of Granada in southern Spain. His father, Federico García Rodríguez, was a wealthy landowner who profited from the sugar industry boom. His mother, Vicenta Lorca Romero, was a teacher. In 1905 the family moved to Valderrubio, then called Asquerosa.

In 1909, when he was 11, they moved to Granada, where he attended high school. Their best-known home there was the summer house Huerta de San Vicente, on the city's outskirts. He always valued living close to nature and praised his rural upbringing. All three homes are now museums.

In 1915, after finishing secondary school, he entered the University of Granada, studying law, literature, and composition. As a teenager, he loved music more than writing. At age 11 he started six years of piano lessons with Antonio Segura Mesa, a harmony teacher and composer.

Segura inspired his dream of a music career. His early artistic influences came from Claude Debussy, Frédéric Chopin, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Later, through his friendship with composer Manuel de Falla, Spanish folklore became his inspiration. He did not turn to writing until Segura's death in 1916, and his first prose works used musical forms.

He was part of a group of young intellectuals at the Café Alameda in Granada. In 1916 and 1917 he traveled through Castile, León, and Galicia with a university professor, who encouraged him to write his first book, Impressions and Landscapes, published at his father's expense in 1918. Fernando de los Rios convinced his parents to let him move to the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid in 1919, while he nominally attended classes at the University of Madrid.

At the Residencia, he befriended Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, and many other creative artists who would become influential in Spain. Poet Juan Ramón Jiménez mentored him, and he grew close to playwright Eduardo Marquina and Gregorio Martínez Sierra, director of Madrid's Teatro Eslava. In 1919–20, at Sierra's invitation, he wrote and staged his first play, The Butterfly's Evil Spell, a verse drama about a cockroach and a butterfly in love.

It was poorly received and closed after four performances, shaping his view of theatre audiences for the rest of his career. He later claimed Mariana Pineda, written in 1927, was actually his first play. At the Residencia, he studied law and philosophy but focused more on writing.

His first poetry book, Libro de poemas, came out in 1921, collecting work from 1918 with help from his brother Francisco. The poems dealt with religious faith, isolation, and nature.

As a young writer

In early 1922, he joined Manuel de Falla in Granada to promote the Concurso de Cante Jondo, a festival for flamenco and its cante jondo style. During this period he explored short songs, like the poem "Orchard, March," written between 1921 and 1924 and later included in Canciones. He had already started writing Poema del cante jondo, not published until 1931, and wrote an essay on flamenco while speaking publicly in support of the festival.