Illustration by Maria Manhattan
García Lorca was born Federico García Lorca on June 5, 1898, in Fuente Vaqueros in the Spanish province of Granada. As a child, he expressed his creativity and vivid imagination through music and poetry. He initially studied philosophy and law at the University of Granada, but in 1918 he transferred to the University of Madrid to pursue his passion for literature, art, and the theatre. Lorca, one of Spain’s most talented and beloved literary figures, was a poet and playwright who produced a unique form of poetry for the stage. In Madrid, he became friends with painter Salvador Dalí, filmmaker Luis Buñuel, and poet Rafael Alberti—an avant-garde group that would become known as Generación del 27. As a dramatist, he is best known for his tragedies and many plays with left-wing social implications.
During the Spanish Civil War, Lorca was killed by Fransisco Franco’s Nationalists who considered intellectuals dangerous.
