Federico Garcia Lorca

Federico García Lorca was born in 1898 in Fuente Vaqueros, a small town near Granada, Spain. He was a talented musician and artist from an early age. He studied law and literature at the University of Granada and later moved to Madrid, where he became friends with other famous writers and artists, such as Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel and Manuel de Falla. He was part of the Generation of '27, a group of avant-garde poets who introduced modernist influences into Spanish literature. He traveled to New York, Cuba and Argentina, where he gained international recognition for his poetry and theater. He published several books of poems, such as Romancero gitano (Gypsy Ballads, 1928), Poeta en Nueva York (Poet in New York, 1942) and Diván del Tamarit (The Tamarit Divan, 1940). He also wrote many plays, some of them inspired by the folklore and traditions of his native Andalusia, such as Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding, 1932), Yerma (1934) and La casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba, 1936). He also founded a traveling theater company called La Barraca, which performed classic Spanish plays for rural audiences. García Lorca was openly homosexual and supported the leftist Popular Front during the Spanish Civil War. He was arrested by the Nationalist forces in Granada in August 1936 and executed without trial. His body was never found and his death became a symbol of the brutality of the war. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Spanish poets and dramatists of the 20th century.