John Butt

In Argentina in 1933, so Leslie Stainton tells us, Lorca ‘began wearing a white linen suit, and frequently a white cotton sailor’s shirt with a V-shaped neck and a dark sash. He took childlike delight in donning the shirt and going to the beach to “awaken” the seashells by calling out to them.’ He was obviously someone to be taken only in tiny doses. It is also clear that this poet and playwright, talented pianist, cartoonist and painter, raconteur and wit, noted reciter of verse, theatrical director, mimic, sporadic literary theorist, occasional conjuror and luminary of Madrid’s cafés, presents a classic case of the life’s work threatened with eclipse by the life itself.‘