In June 2016, when a Florida jury found a Chilean army officer liable for Victor Jara’s murder 46 years ago, it gave a ray of hope to those who have been campaigning for justice for Garcia Lorca. Both Lorca (1898-1936) and Jara (1932-1973) occupy preeminent positions in the 20^th century literature produced in the Spanish language. Though continents apart -- Lorca from Spain in Europe and Jara from Chile in South America -- both had many similarities: they were poets, delivered lectures, wrote and directed plays, indulged in politics, and highlighted women’s issues; both were almost the same age when assassinated by their own army men.

The year Lorca was born, Spain lost its major overseas colonies -- Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines -- in the American-Spanish War, resulting in the start of the Restoration’s decline and emergence of conflicting opposition movements at local and national level. The failed attempts to conquer Morocco also caused great discontent at home and ended in a revolt in Barcelona. During the First World War, Lorca attended the University of Granada and studied law, literature and composition but he felt deeper affinity for music than for literature and after years of piano lessons he became an expert piano player. Debussy, Chopin, and Beethoven were his artistic inspirations.

In 1920, Lorca wrote and staged his first play, The Butterfly’s Evil Spell, dramatising the impossible love between a cockroach and a butterfly, with a supporting cast of other insects. The German-language writer Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis had been published in 1915 in which the protagonist finds himself converted into an insect one morning. While Metamorphosis has drawn critical acclaim for over a century, Lorca’s play was laughed off the stage by an unappreciative public after only four performances. Then he concentrated on his poetry and his first book of poems based mostly on Spanish folklore was published in 1921. That was the time when Lorca’s work was being infused with popular themes such as Flamenco and Gypsy culture and also reflected themes of religious faith, isolation, and nature.

He composed an essay on the art of flamenco and began to speak publically. He also adapted a play for children from an Andalusian story. Now he was increasingly involved in Spain’s avant-garde while the country came under another dictatorship in 1923. The Soviet Revolution and the ultimate victory of the Red Guards in Russia in the early 1920s had inspired revolutionary movements across Europe and the fear of a proletarian revolution and anarchist terrorism in Spain and the rise of nationalist movements had caused great agitation amongst the military and the civilians.

In 1923 Captain de Rivera orchestrated a coup after blaming the problems of Spain on the parliamentary system. The monarch backed the general and named him prime minister, much in the same fashion as Iskander Mirza in Pakistan appointed General Ayub Khan as the prime minister just to be overthrown by him two days later on Oct 27, 1956. De Rivera suspended the constitution and assumed absolute powers as a dictator; after creating his own sole legal party by abolishing all other parties. Between 1923 and 1927, these upheavals resulted in the emergence of a group of creative artists and writers in Spanish literary circles to work for avant-garde forms of art and poetry.

Garcia Lorca became part of this group known as the Generation of 1927 which included Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel exposing the young poet to surrealism. The group tried to bridge the gap between the Spanish popular culture and folklore, classical literary tradition and European avant-gardes. In 1928, Lorca published his poetry collection, Gypsy Ballads, which became his best known book of poetry – reprinted almost every year till his murder. His second play, Mariana Pineda, with stage settings by Salvador Dali, opened in Barcelona in 1927 but Lorca only gained notability as a playwright later in life.

As the Great Depression began looming, the European economies collapsed and so did the dictatorship in Spain in the face of increasing demands for a popular government. In 1930 the dictator, de Rivera, was forced to resign and the king gave the government to Admiral Aznar who called for local elections in 1931. The republican and socialist parties won some significant victories in major cities and the king fled Spain in April 1931. The Second Spanish Republic was established under a provisional government led by Zamora - a lawyer who served briefly as the first prime minister of the Second Spanish Republic and then - from 1931 to 36 - as its president.

The Second Republic appointed Lorca as a director of a student theatre company called La Barraca (the Shack). It was funded by the ministry of education and charged with touring Spain’s rural areas to introduce audiences to radically modern interpretations of classical Spanish theatre, free of charge. Garcia Lorca directed as well as acted on a portable stage with little equipment and brought theatre to people who had never seen any. This experience transformed him into a passionate advocate of theatre for social change.

Now Lorca’s best time as a playwright was coming -- he wrote his best-known plays, the Rural Trilogy of Blood Wedding, Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba. These plays encouraged people to rebel against the decadent norms of the Spanish society. For Pakistan, these plays have especial relevance as they touch the themes of honour, women’s suppression in the name of tradition, and the taboo of female sexuality. Particularly The House of Bernarda Alba can be watched as an English language TV film (1991) starring Glena Jackson as the old and suppressive matriarch who keeps her five daughters in an almost prison-like condition.

In India The House of Bernarda Alba was adapted and translated by the versatile Hindi poet and writer Dr Raghuvir Sahay (1929-1990) as Birjis Qadar ka Kunba, produced in 1980 by Amal Allana who later became a prominent Indian theatre director; (she is now the chairperson of National School of Drama). Govind Nihalani wrote his own screenplay and in 1991 made it into a Hindi feature film, Rukmavati ki Haveli, set in a Rajasthan village, with Ila Arun and Pallavi Joshi.

Garcia Lorca’s La Barraca faced financial difficulties when its subsidy was cut in half by the rightist government elected in 1934. In 1936, new elections were held and the left-wing parties worked together to form a Popular Front government. The right-wing military officers revolted and the Spanish Civil War started. Lorca was arrested by the rebels who killed and threw him in an unnamed grave. The Civil War ended in 1939 after total eradication of the left in Spain by General Franco’s right wing forces supported not only by Hitler and Mussolini but also by the so-called liberal democracies such as the UK and the US.

Though Victor Jara received a proper burial in 2009 and the then president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, spoke in his honour, Lorca’s burial place is unknown to this day, and even after 80 years no proper investigation has been carried out that could lead to the identification of Lorca’s murderers.