The Assassination of Federico García Lorca

"Ian Gibson later wrote the great biography of Lorca, which is another wonderful book. This book on the death of Lorca was his first and was published by a Spanish exiled publishing house in Paris in 1971 and won a lot of international prizes. As a literature student Ian had gone to Granada to do a thesis about Lorca’s poetry. And he got hooked on the whole mystery of his death and what had happened and so produced this beautifully written book. It was such an international success that it then came out in English. He really does write like an angel. The book is effectively a detective story and, although over the years odd bits and pieces have come out, it remains to this day the definitive study. There is a lot written about Lorca’s death in Spanish as well. I have got a couple of yards of books about the death of Lorca. What wasn’t known was exactly who had pulled the trigger and, of course, the bigger mystery was why. Here was this man who wasn’t dangerous to the military rebels. But he was somebody who was very much associated with the republic and in 1934 had declared: “I will always be on the side of those who have nothing.” His travelling theatre group La Barraca , inspired by a social missionary zeal, took culture to the villages, not just in Andalucia but all over Spain. He had upset the local establishment by suggesting that the Catholic conquest of Moorish Granada in 1492 had been a disaster. In many respects he was an innocent. When the war broke out he decided to go to Granada because he thought he would be safest at home, but actually when he got there it became apparent that he wasn’t safe. He took refuge in the home of a friend, Luis Rosales, who was also a poet, albeit a Falangist. Federico assumed that if he stayed with him he would be safe. But one day, when Rosales was out, civil guards came to get him. He had been denounced by Ramón Ruiz Alonso, a right-wing politician. With the OK of José Valdés, the local commander of the civil guard, a real fascist and also a rather twisted individual who had been badly wounded in the stomach, was in extreme agony and eaten up with hatred, Lorca was shot and, until Gibson’s book, nobody really knew why. Ian unravels all of this and does it wonderfully. He gives the background of what Lorca was like and why he was hated. He gives a fantastic picture of the social tension in Granada in the spring of 1936 and then writes this great detective story, following what exactly happened to Federico. He managed to track down the people who were boasting in bars that they had shot Lorca because he was gay! The story of the guys who did it is just disgusting but it is a fascinating read."