Federico García Lorca has been called "the most important Spanish poet and dramatist of the twentieth century" by the Academy of American Poets. His short career had humble beginnings. Lorca was born near Granada, Spain in the village of Fuente Vaqueros, the son of a farmer and a homemaker. A talented student, he attended Sacred Heart University and the University of Granada, where he studied law, a subject that never captured his passion despite his aptitude for language.
After taking a field trip to Castile with his art class in 1917, Lorca was inspired to work on his first book of poetry, Impresiones y viajes, which he published in 1919. That year, he dropped out of university and...