Gypsy Ballads A New Translation of the Romancero Gitano by Federico Garcia Lorca

Literary translation is a daring act. The risk involved is compounded when dealing with a monumentally famous and intricate work of poetry such as Federico Garc�a Lorca's Romancero Gitano (1924 - 1927). Still, some works are so brilliant that they demand the attempt because they deserve the widest possible audience. I am certainly not the first one to make this attempt with the Gypsy Ballads (there have been many over the years). But it may also be true that every generation needs its own translation of major works because languages are living things that are always on the move. In this translation I have used my best judgment in the selection of vocabulary, meter, cadence and rhyme in English that captures the essence of what these eighteen original ballads convey to me. If this English rendering sings a little and sticks in the mind of English speakers the way Garc�a Lorca's own words do in the Spanish-speaking world then I will have done justice to his poetic tower of song.