PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS : POET IN NEW YORK – FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA-CHRISTOPHER MAURER-CHRISTOPHER MAURER-GREG SIMON

There has been no more terribly acute critic of America than this steel-conscious and death-conscious Spaniard, with his curious passion for the modernities of nickel and tinfoil and nitre . . . So wrote Conrad Aiken of Lorca s violent response to the New York he encountered as a student at Columbia University in 1929 and 1930. Born and brought up in Andalusia, Lorca s reaction to the brutality and loneliness of the vast city was one of amazement and indignation. His poetry moved away from the lyricism of the early Romanceros and became a vehicle for experimental techniques through which he expressed tortured feelings of alienation and dislocation. Based on a new edition of the original text, Greg Simon s and Steven White s new translation brings to life Lorca s arresting imagery. Christopher Maurer, a leading authority on Lorca s work, provides an enlightening introduction placing Poet in New York in context, and there are translations of Lorca s letters as well as a lecture he gave about the work. Illustrated with archive photographs, this comprehensive volume will make Lorca s masterpiece available to a whole new generation of readers.