Immortalized in death by The Clash, Pablo Neruda, Salvador Dalí, Dmitri Shostakovich and Lindsay Kemp, Federico García Lorca's spectre haunts both contemporary Spain and the cultural landscape beyond.

This study offers a fresh examination of one of the Spanish language's most resonant voices; exploring how the very factors which led to his emergence as a cultural icon also shaped his dramatic output.

The works themselves are also awarded the space that they deserve, combining performance histories with incisive textual analysis to restate Lorca's presence as a playwright of extraordinary vision, in works such as:

• Blood Wedding
• The Public
• The House of Bernarda Alba
• Yerma.

Federico García Lorca is an invaluable new resource for those seeking to understand this complex and multifaceted figure: artist, playwright, director, poet, martyr and in the eyes of many, Spain's 'national dramatist'.