Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) was Spain’s most celebrated poet and playwright of the 20th century, born in Fuente Vaqueros near Granada. Before turning to literature, he trained seriously as a musician and pianist, an art form whose rhythms and folk roots deeply shaped his poetic voice throughout his career.

A central figure of the Generation of ’27, the loose group of Spanish artists and writers who fused avant-garde European currents with traditional Spanish themes, Lorca is best known internationally for tragic folk dramas such as Bodas de sangre and La casa de Bernarda Alba, as well as poetry collections steeped in Andalusian imagery, flamenco cadence, and gitano culture, including Romancero gitano.

His musical training led him to compile and arrange a celebrated collection of traditional Spanish folk songs, several of which, like «La Tarara», remain performed and recorded to this day. Lorca was executed by a Nationalist death squad in 1936 at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, a killing whose exact motives remain debated, cutting short one of Spanish literature’s most singular careers.