Of Lorca and Lemons

World-famous poet and dramatist, Granada’s Federico García Lorca is finally receiving his due. His poetry, full of olive groves, lemons, gypsies, Moors, and bullfighters, brought images of passionate Andalusia to the world. But upon the outbreak of civil war in 1936, Lorca was arrested by Franco’s Nationalist forces and killed near the hilltop town of Alfácar, northeast of Granada, following the outbreak of the civil war. As Lorca was both a known homosexual and a socialist-leaning public figure, the motivations for his murder—social, political, or personal—remain controversial to this day.

Since the fall of Franco, Lorca’s childhood homes in the neighboring towns of Fuente Vaqueros and Valderrubio have become museums honoring his legacy. And in a lonely olive orchard in Alfácar, the alleged site of his execution, a park now shelters a memorial wall engraved with his poetry. Meanwhile, Granada’s literary pilgrims visit the blooming Huerta de San Vicente, the summer house where Lorca wrote some of his most famous poems.

(To reach Parque Garcia Lorca in Granada, walk down C. Recogidas from Puerta Real; take a right when you hit Camino de Ronda, then a left on C. Virgen Blanca. Tours organized through the Granada tourist office in Pl. Mariana Pineda run on Fridays and Saturdays to each of these sites. For more information, call 902 11 46 66.)