García Lorca, Federico, << gahr THEE ah LAWR kah, `fay` thay REE koh >> (1898-1936), was one of the greatest Spanish poets and dramatists. García Lorca and Miguel de Cervantes are the most widely translated Spanish authors.
García Lorca’s early poetry, collected in Libro de poemas (1921) and Canciones (1927), contains delicate, original descriptions of nature. The complex and beautiful Gypsy Ballads (1928) is his best-known collection of poetry. One of his finest poems, Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, is an elegy to a bullfighter who was killed in 1934.
García Lorca wrote three stunning rural tragedies: Blood Wedding (1933), Yerma (1934), and The House of Bernarda Alba (completed in 1936 and first performed in 1945). They are filled with violent passion and poetic symbolism. García Lorca was also a skillful writer of comedies and surrealistic farces.
García Lorca was born on June 5, 1898, near Granada. In 1932, he founded a traveling theater that performed plays throughout Spain. He was killed in the Spanish Civil War by followers of Francisco Franco on Aug. 19 or 20, 1936. After his death, much of García Lorca’s poetry was published in Collected Poems: A Bilingual Edition (1991) and Poet in Spain (2017).
