Lorca: A Dream of Life

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Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) was not yet 40 when he was executed by Falangists during the Spanish Civil War, yet he already towered over literature in Spain. He was arguably his generation's greatest poet and playwright. Although Lorca was best known in his lifetime for works like Gypsy Ballads and Blood Wedding, which expressed the soulful intensity of his native Andalusia, this well-researched, probing biography reminds readers that he was both cosmopolitan and unpredictable as an artist and a man. Despite his privileged background, Lorca was "a poet of the people who viewed poetry as something that walks along the streets," someone who wrote as naturally as he breathed and loved music and drawing nearly as much as poetry and drama. Leslie Stainton, an American scholar who lived in Spain for several years while researching this book, perceptively analyzes Lorca's homosexuality, his left-wing political views, and his artistic convictions, painting an intriguing picture of a man whose strong feelings and beliefs were tempered by a dislike of being pinned down. Though judiciously critical in evaluating Lorca's work, the author conveys with force her appreciation of his ability to forge new language for the exploration of age-old themes: "the capriciousness of time, the impossibility of love, the phantoms of identity, art, childhood, sex, and death." --Wendy Smith


From Publishers Weekly
Federico Garc!a Lorca called the fatal goring of a bullfighter friend "an apprenticeship for my own death." More because of his homosexuality than his openly sexual poems and plays, or his moderate leftist politics, he expected right-wing retribution. It came in August 1936, when he was arrested, despite being sheltered in the house of a well-known fascist family, and was promptly executed by Franco's devout murderers. His body has never been found. He left behind, unproduced, three plays, among them his greatest, The House of Bernarda Alba. He also left, unpublished, three poetry collections. Stainton's biography traces the trajectory of his doomed lifeAhis years of apparent idleness, supported by an indulgent and prosperous father who counted upon his son's inevitable fame; his coming to terms with, and then flaunting, his sexual orientation; his burgeoning fame as poet and playwright; his conflicts with the church and with the political authorities over what he said and how he said it. His relations with Neruda, Dal!, Benavente, Bu?uel and de Falls, among others, are explored, often from heretofore unexploited documentation. Lorca's great creative achievements are a bit muted here, perhaps because so many of his 42 years were spent in incubation rather than productivity, and perhaps also because so many pages explore his grappling with his sexuality and his subsequent glorifying of it. In Stainton's telling, however, Lorca's artistic development, and his struggles with interfering forces form a dramatic and powerful story. 68 b&w illustrations. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Finally, a straightforward biography of the greatest Spanish poet of this century that chronicles his day-to-day life and includes his homosexual dimension, so assiduously concealed by generations of his admirers. In a career of less than two decades, Lorca produced nine books of verse and 13 plays that revitalized some of Spain's basic literary strains: ballad, sonnet, tragedy, and farce. His themes explore the unattainability of love, the phantoms of identity, the creation of art, and aspects of childhood, sex, and death. He was a declamatory poet who preferred a live audience to the renown of publication, and despite his plain looks and rotundity he had a magnetic stage presence. Aware that he lacked the confrontational instinct to take sides politically, Lorca believed that literature needed to be apolitical in order to effect social change less abrasively. Yet his murder by Franco supporters in 1936 was politically motivated. Lorca scholar Stainton draws on a cache of newly discovered letters and archival material to breathe vigorous life into her subject. Highly recommended.AJack Shreve, Allegany Coll. of Maryland, Cumberland Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Roberto González
It is to Leslie Stainton's credit that she does not belabor the pathos in García Lorca's life in her full-scale, measured and enjoyable biography.


Roberto Ruiz, The Boston Globe
"[A] full-scale, measured and enjoyable biography." (Roberto Gonzlez Echevarra, The New York Times Book Review)REVIEW: "This biography is a splendid achievement. The understanding of Lorca and his legacy will be enriched by it."


From Booklist
In this remarkable biography, Stainton identifies the decisive influences that transformed Federico Garcia Lorca from an eccentric schoolboy ridiculed by classmates into a charismatic writer acclaimed by readers around the world. With Lorca, we thrill to the bizarre artistry of his friend (and probable lover) Salvador Dali, and we celebrate the praise of his young admirer Pablo Neruda. Yet the dramatist who gave the world The Blood Wedding would finally allow no one but himself to dictate the script for his turbulent life. Stainton deftly traces Lorca's psychological and aesthetic evolution, as early ambivalence about women gave way to defiant homosexuality. And she plumbs the religious doubts that exposed Lorca to a terror of death and a dread of damnation. Because of the circumstances of his death, the Left immediately claimed him as a martyr for their cause. Stainton rescues him from ideology, showing that Lorca rarely acted on political impulses and that he died not as a partisan but rather as an anguished and vulnerable human being. A balanced and memorable portrait. Bryce Christensen


From Kirkus Reviews
A meticulously crafted, elegantly recounted biography of the renowned Spanish poet and playwright. Born in 1898, Federico Garca Lorca came of age during the great flowering of Spanish modernism that produced such notables, and friends, as Salvador Dali and Luis Buuel, and, arguably, led to the Spanish Civil War. Lorcas father, a wealthy Andalusian landowner, usually indulged and funded his sons poetic and dramatic aspirations, paying for the printing of his first two books and financing his first play. These efforts attracted some positive critical attention yet were financial disasters. Lorca largely shrugged them off: ``fortunately I dont have to make a living from my pen. If I did, I wouldnt be so happy.'' He had the brash self-confidence of genius, and though his parents insisted he get a law degree, he refused to settle down into a quiet, quotidian existence. He had enormous energy, organizing folk-song festivals, writing puppet shows, giving lectures. Slowly but definitively, he became a major cultural phenomenon. His plays made some money, his poetry books went into second editions. However, it was two trips abroad, to New York City and Buenos Aires, that secured Lorcas reputation and allowed him to find his full poetic voice. Although he still wrote the occasional poem, he began to turn increasingly to poetic drama, creating such classics as Blood Wedding. He also began to come to terms with his homosexuality, in both his art and life. Despite being essentially apolitical, in Spains heated political climate, Lorca was strongly identified with the Republican left. It is a tragic testament to the power of his work that in the early days of the Spanish Civil War, he was arrested and executed. He was only 38. Stainton, who has written widely for scholarly journals and other publications, has done a remarkable job of capturing the rich fullness of Lorcas short, brilliant life. (illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
A magnificent and astonishingly vivid biography of one of the century's premier poets. With a rare blend of grace and scholarship, Leslie Stainton raises the stakes of our appreciation for the greatest of Spain's modern poets, Federico Garca Lorca. Drawing on fourteen years of research; more than a hundred letters previously unknown to biographers; exclusive interviews with Lorca's friends, family, and acquaintances; and newly discovered archival material, Stainton has brought her subject to life as few biographers can. She describes his carefree childhood in rural Andalusia; his life in Madrid and Granada, then in New York, Havana, and Buenos Aires; his potent relationships with other Spanish artists, such as Salvador Dal, Luis Buuel, and Manuel de Falla; and, finally, his marginal political involvement in the Spanish Civil War that nonetheless cost him his life. Lorca exasperated his family for years with his "idleness," but he captivated his many admirers through his charisma, passion, and artistic genius. Deeply divided, Lorca grappled with issues of class, culture, and identity-he struggled to come to terms with his homosexuality, and Stainton shows how that struggle informed his work. Throughout, Stainton meticulously relates the oeuvre to the life. Her biography will quickly become the standard one-volume work on the poet.


About the Author
Leslie Stainton has written for numerous publications and scholarly journals, including The New York Times and the Bulletin of the Federico Garca Lorca Foundation. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.


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Finally, a straightforward biography of the greatest Spanish poet of this century that chronicles his day-to-day life and includes his homosexual dimension, so assiduously concealed by generations of his admirers. In a career of less than two decades, Lorca produced nine books of verse and 13 plays that revitalized some of Spain's basic literary strains: ballad, sonnet, tragedy, and farce. His themes explore the unattainability of love, the phantoms of identity, the creation of art, and aspects of childhood, sex, and death. He was a declamatory poet who preferred a live audience to the renown of publication, and despite his plain looks and rotundity he had a magnetic stage presence. Aware that he lacked the confrontational instinct to take sides politically, Lorca believed that literature needed to be apolitical in order to effect social change less abrasively. Yet his murder by Franco supporters in 1936 was politically motivated. Lorca scholar Stainton draws on a cache of newly discovered letters and archival material to breathe vigorous life into her subject. Highly recommended.--Jack Shreve, Allegany Coll. of Maryland, Cumberland Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information. Read all 7 "From The Critics" >


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