García Lorca, Federico

Poets who enjoy the favour of the people are given short names, like Aesop, Horace, Martí, or Machado. It is enough to call Federico García Lorca ‘Lorca’ or, more intimately, ‘Federico’. He liked acting. He was a poet who gave speeches. He used to gather all his friends together and play piano for them, and while he sang lullabies accompanied by music, it was evident none of the attendees ever thought of falling asleep. Lorca’s lullabies were moon songs. Most of his poetry belonged to that mysterious world, subjected to the influence of the Andalusian moon. He was born in Fuentes Vaqueros, near Granada, in 1898, and died in a cliff on the outskirts of Víznar in 1936, devoured by tigers.

Portrait of the author by Manuel Flores