Major Federico Garcia Lorca Festival Set for 4/5-7/21

The Federico García Lorca Foundation announced today the largest-ever festival in North America celebrating the work of Federico García Lorca, who is often described as the most influential Spanish poet and playwright of the last century. "Lorca in New York: A Celebration" (April 5- July 21) features more than two dozen events at venues throughout Manhattan, many of which will mine an aspect of Lorca's classic work, Poet in New York. Anchored by a world-premiere exhibition at The New York Public Library (NYPL) and timed to the release of Farrar, Straus and Giroux's new, enhanced edition of Poet in New York, the festival marks the first time in more than 25 years that the city will pay tribute to Lorca on a grand scale.

Born in an Andalusian village in 1898 and murdered by a pro-Franco firing squad in 1936, Lorca managed in his short life to produce some of his era's most admired, and enduring, poems and plays. "Lorca in New York" focuses on a brief but prolific period of the writer's life in 1929-30. Recently estranged from his close friend Salvador Dali, haunted by the break-up of an important love affair, and struggling to live both as a public figure and a homosexual, Lorca came to New York to heal, and to write. He enrolled at Columbia University and set out to explore New York, from Harlem ("the most important black city in the world") to Wall Street, where he would witness the 1929 crash.

So radical was his "lyrical reaction" to the city that Lorca delayed publication of Poet in New York, preferring to perform it aloud with an interpretive lecture so he could "read the book and analyze it at the same time." In July 1936, after years of mulling over the title, contents, and organization of the book, Lorca took the manuscript to the Madrid office of a famous small press. The publisher was out, so Lorca left a note saying that he would be "back tomorrow." Days later, the Spanish Civil War broke out. Within a month, Lorca-a liberal who had excoriated the Spanish bourgeoisie and was openly gay-was arrested and executed by order of one of Franco's generals.

When finally published in 1940, Poet would change the direction of poetry in both Spain and the Americas for generations to come. Meanwhile, in Franco's Spain, Lorca's works would be banned for another 15 years.

"Over the decades, the name 'Lorca' has meant many things to many people," said Laura García Lorca, President of the Foundation and Lorca's niece. "To some, he became a symbol of all victims of fascist tyranny; to others, he was the iconic persecuted homosexual. Some remembered him as that popular 'gypsy' poet; others, as a deeply affecting and visionary playwright. This festival is so welcome because it invites audiences to re-engage with the work itself, to take the measure of the man and his talent through one of his greatest achievements, a book that remains astonishingly new and provocative today."

From April 5- July 21, The New York Public Library hosts Back Tomorrow: Federico García Lorca/ Poet in New York a world-premiere exhibition curated by Christopher Maurer and Andrés Soria Olmedo. To illuminate Lorca's process of creatingPoet in New York, it brings together for the first time the various manuscripts, original drawings, letters, and photos he generated during this extraordinary period. The exhibition traces the poet's evolving vision of the book, from first drafts to fair copies, but it also shows the cheerful letters Lorca was writing home while composing the book's searing poems. Personal objects, including Lorca's passport, guitar, and bank book, will also be on display. Rare books and manuscripts from the Library's collections provide additional historical context for the period.

Throughout the run of the exhibition, the Federico García Lorca Foundation will mount a citywide festival that engages audiences with Lorca through words, music, and images. Columbia, CUNY, NYU, and the New York Public Library will host panels and lectures on Lorca's life and work. At CUNY, the jazz pianist Ben Sidran reprises his 1998 "Concert for García Lorca," originally performed on Lorca's piano in Granada. The Bowery Ballroom hosts a concert by singer and poet Patti Smith in honor of Lorca's birthday. At St. Mark's Church, The Poetry Project hosts an evening of writers reading from Poet in New York, including Paul Auster, John Giorno, Aracelis Girmay, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Frederic Tuten. And Teatro SEA offers rare performances of one of Lorca's puppet theater works, "The Billy-Club Puppets."