Federico García Lorca

Hello! My name is Federico García Lorca. I was born on a warm day, June 5th, 1898, in a sunny little town in Spain called Fuente Vaqueros. Even when I was a small boy, I loved music and stories more than anything. I learned to play the piano, and my fingers would dance across the keys, filling our home with beautiful sounds. I also loved listening to the old folk songs and puppet shows in my village, which sparked my imagination and made me dream of telling my own tales.

When I grew up, in 1919, I moved to the big, bustling city of Madrid to go to a special school called the Residencia de Estudiantes. It was such an exciting place! I made wonderful friends who also loved to create things, like the famous painter Salvador Dalí. We would talk for hours about art, books, and big ideas. Inspired by my friends and my country, I began writing poems. In 1928, I wrote a book of poems called 'Gypsy Ballads' that people loved, and soon, many people in Spain knew my name.

I didn't just love writing poems; I also adored the theater! I believed that stories and plays were for everyone, not just for people in big cities. So, in 1932, I started a traveling theater company with my friends called La Barraca. We drove a big truck from village to village, carrying our stage and costumes with us. We would perform classic Spanish plays right in the town square for free. It was my greatest joy to see the happy, amazed faces of children and grown-ups watching a play for the very first time.

Later, a very sad and difficult time of conflict began in my country. My life ended during this time in August 1936. I lived to be 38 years old. But even though my time was short, my words live on. Today, my poems are read in schools and my plays are performed on stages all around the world, sharing the music and magic of Spain with new friends everywhere. And that was always my biggest dream.