My Heart Holds a Thousand Guitars, Followed by The Duende

When I die,

bury me with my guitar beneath the sand.

When I die,

among the orange and mint shrubs.

When I die, bury me, if you wish,

in a whirl of wind.

When I die!

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“The duende is neither an angel nor a muse, but a mysterious force that rises from the depths… a spirit that digs into the artist’s very flesh.”

—Federico García Lorca, from his famous lecture “Theory of the Duende”

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Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) stands as one of the most prominent voices of twentieth-century Spanish poetry, and one of the most translated into Arabic. His work has shaped the poetic sensibility of several generations, thanks to his exceptional talent as a poet, playwright, musician, and painter, deeply inspired by the folk arts of Andalusia. Alongside his contemporaries of the Generation of ’27, Lorca contributed to reshaping the Spanish literary scene for decades to come.

This extensive selection from across his poetry reveals how rarely one encounters lyricism of such clarity and penetration, such tenderness, flow, and closeness to nature—lyricism whose surreal images and structures grant it a suggestive depth and richness.