Rafael Alberti

Born Dec. 16, 1902, in the village Puerto de Santa Maria, Cädiz province. Spanish poet; communist.

Alberti’s first poems, dating from the 1920’s, are close to the traditions of folk poetry. The growing revolutionary struggle in Spain and the fall of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship in 1930 introduced new content into Alberti’s work. He dedicated his play Fermín Galan (1931) to the life and heroic death of that revolutionary; the cycle of poems, Spanish Peasants, which was included in the collection entitled Slogans (1933; Russ. trans., 1934), was devoted to the daily life and struggle of Spanish laborers. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), Alberti played an active role in the Union of Anti-Fascist Spanish Intellectuals. His poetry from those years was published in the books Poet on the Street (1936) and In Crisis (1937).

After the defeat of the Spanish Republic, Alberti emigrated to Argentina and published the following collections: Between the Carnation and the Sword (1941), Surf (1944), Stanzas of Juan Panadero (1949; Russ. trans., 1956), and Ballads and Songs of the Paraná River (1954). They all were dedicated to the people’s struggle for peace and freedom. Alberti also wrote plays, including A Night of War in the Prado Museum (1956; Russ. trans., 1960). In 1959, Alberti published two volumes of memoirs entitled The Lost Grove (Russ. trans., 1968). In 1964 he was awarded the International Lenin Prize For Strengthening Peace Between Nations. Alberti now lives in Rome.