Only Mystery

Weaving together 22 full-colour drawings and new translations of prose pieces and poems, "Only Mystery" presents the life of Spain's greatest modern poet and playwright. In 1936 a death squad executed 38-year-old Federico Garcia Lorca, dumping his body into an unmarked common grave near Lorca's native city of Granada. This volume of his visual art - largely unknown - and his writing chronicles Lorca's short existence, beginning with poems of his childhood and ending with his prophecies of assassination. The work illuminates Lorca's vision of nature, the gypsies of southern Spain, his experience in New York, and, above all, his sense of the mystery of love and death. The guiding principles for selecting poems, prose and paintings were dramatic effect and narrative cohesion. Originally designed for performance in readers theatre, "Only Mystery" may be appreciated as both a dramatic text for performance and an illustrated narrative of the poet's lyrical world.