Today is the birthdate of playwright and poet Federico Garciá Lorca, born in1898 in Fuente Vaqueros, near Granada in Spain.
In 1936, García Lorca was staying at Callejones de García, his country home, at the outbreak of the Civil War. He was arrested by Franquist soldiers, and on August 19, after a few days in jail, soldiers took García Lorca to “visit” his brother-in-law, Manuel Fernandez Montesinos, the Socialist ex-mayor of Granada whom the soldiers had murdered and dragged through the streets. When they arrived at the cemetery, the soldiers forced García Lorca from the car. They struck him with the butts of their rifles and riddled his body with bullets. His books were burned in Granada’s Plaza del Carmen and were soon banned from Franco’s Spain.
“…never let me lose what I have gained,
and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.”
A World Made Out of Stories 
I’ve heard of this guy.. wasn’t he gay as well? Seemed like a really interesting bloke.
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You know, I’m not sure. He came on my radar due to the line I quoted, which I first read in a poem by Natalie Diaz. He was influential in Spanish theater. Was sadly executed during the Spanish Civil War.
Lorca’s profile on Poetry Foundation is here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/federico-garcia-lorca
Here’s Diaz’s profile:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/natalie-diaz
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