Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.It has taken a decade of negotiations, but the building that inspired Spain’s greatest 20th century poet and playwright, Federico García Lorca, to write one of his best-known plays The House of Bernarda Alba is soon to become a museum.
Living next door in the village of Valderrubio in rural Andalusia, Lorca was apparently inspired to write Bernarda Alba – about a matriarch who rules her five daughters’ isolated, claustrophic lives with an iron fist – from conversations he heard drifting over from his neighbour’s backyard.
Negotiations to buy the property, originally belonging to one Frasquita Alba but with eight different co-inheritors, had dragged on for 10 years – during which time the house partly collapsed. But last week it was purchased by a public trust, for €177,000, €50,000 of which are earmarked for its restoration.
Born in another nearby village, Fuente Vaqueros, in 1898, Garcia Lorca’s original home is already a museum. But Valderrubio, where Lorca’s family moved when he was aged five, is arguably even more important in his personal history.
Events or locations in Valderrubio crop up in plays as well-known as Blood Wedding and Yerma [Barren] – the latter partly inspired by conversations about fertility between local women as they washed laundry at a public fountain. And had not Lorca been murdered by General Franco’s death squads in August 1936, two months after completing The House of Bernarda Alba, perhaps even more of Valderrubio would have featured in his work.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments