The Death of Lorca

Book excerpt: "Frederico Garcia Lorca, one of the outstanding poets and dramatists of this century, was murdered at the age of thirty-eight by Nationalist rebels in his native Granada on the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Since then the Franco regime has sought consistently to prevent the world from knowing how Lorca died, and a tissue of lies and misrepresentations has been woven around both the great poet's death and those of the thousands of ohter Republican supporters executed in Granada. In this book Ian Gibson, who has spent many years researching the subject, marvellously evokes the background to the repression and, in a carefully-documented study, describes the reign of terror that caused the deaths of so mant Spaniards--a story that has never fully been told before. His account of Lorca's arrest and death is the result of meticulous investigation, involving the tracking down of dozens of people concerned in the events surrounding the poet's last days, many of whom were directly implicated in the many Granada killings. This important book, established conclusively how Lorca died. It is no wonder that the book is banned in Spain"--dust jacket.