Lorca, Federico García

Translated by Gloria García Lorca, the writer’s niece, and Jane Duran, the family friend who became a celebrated poet. Gypsy Ballads is therefore the most authentic version of Romancero Gitano imaginable. In this bilingual translation Duran and Lorca have been faithful to Lorca’s work, searching out original meanings, avoiding overt interpretations and reproducing metaphors. As a result, they bring to an English-speaking reader the pure power of Lorca’s poetry. What is thereby revealed is a kaleidoscope of sensory images, characters and stories.

Lorca described his most popular poem as ‘the poem of Andalusia … A book that hardly expresses visible Andalusia at all, but where hidden Andalusia trembles.’ Seeking to relate the nature of his proud and troubled region of Spain, he drew on a traditional gypsy form; yet the unpretentious style of these poems barely disguises the undercurrents of conflicted identity so present in Lorca’s time.

Gypsy Ballads includes revealing insights into the Romancero and the history of the Spanish ballad form by Andrés Soria Olmedo; notes on the dedications by Manuel Fernández-Montesinos; Lorca’s lecture on his own book; and an introduction to the problems and challenges faced by translators of Lorca, by Prof. Christopher Maurer.