A Visit to the Garcia Lorca Museum

Our last day in Granada was spent going to the Garcia Lorca Park and Museum during the early afternoon and then in the late evening going to hear Flameco music. We took a taxi to the Garcia Lorca Park, where we walked through the park to the museum. Our timing for the museum was perfect, although we did not plan it. When we arrived at the museum, we only had to wait a few minutes for our tour. Lorca was a Spanish playwright and poet, who Franco had killed during the Spanish Civil War. The museum consists of two parts, the Lorca family summer home and the bookstore, where the caretaker lived, while the family was in exile.

The simply appointed two-story home was where Lorca wrote many of his plays for the University Theater and perhaps some of his poetry. When he was there in the summer, he could see the Sierra Nevada, which inspired him. The art on the walls were mostly given as gifts from his friends. A painting in the living room was of his mother. The female guide, who spoke Spanish and for me English described the various rooms, including the upstairs. While upstairs, I asked her about Lorca’s politics. He was a member of the Spanish Socialist Party. I asked her his attitude about the P.O.U.M., which I spoke of in at least one earlier post. She avoided the question, but, perhaps I was not clear. She told me the Socialist Party was the oldest among the three ‘Marxist’ parties, meaning the Socialists, the P.O.U.M., and the Communist. She was correct. (In fact, the P.O.U.M. was the youngest.) She also said the most important trade union was the anarchist C.N.T. (National Confederation of Labor), which was also true. (The UGT, the other major trade union during the Spanish Civil War, which I also mentioned early and in which the Stalinists expelled the P.O.U.M. militants, also existed.)

The little bookstore had for sale books Lorca authored. I was tempted to buy a small volume of his plays, but I decided not to because I have some plays by Langston Hughes, the late, great African-American poet, which I have not read. Lorca, like Hughes, was a homosexual, or if you will gay.