The visit of Laura García Lorca to Dénia primarily aimed to unearth from oblivion the figure of Juan Chabàs, one of the most silenced authors of the Generation of '27, born in the town in 1900. This event went beyond a mere tribute, highlighting the striking similarities in the life and literary paths of both writers.
Both shared an exquisite literary sensibility, as expressed by Laura García Lorca in her signature in the guestbook of the Dénia City Council. Their poetry, marked by a "peripheral sensibility," represented an innovation in the literary landscape of the time. While for Lorca the winds came from the south, for Chabàs they came from the east, from the Mediterranean, nourishing his work with verses dedicated to Dénia.
“"Lorca's poetry has dramatic understandings and fragrant sensualities. A dark, ardent southern wind passes through it. The popular, a deep vein, a profound murmur of songs, transforms in his verse into the breath of a new poetry, luxurious in tones, dazzled by images and cinched in its flight like the ruffle of a gypsy skirt rippled by the air of the dance."
The lives of García Lorca and Chabàs were also tragically linked by the repression of the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship. Federico García Lorca was assassinated in Granada in 1936, while Juan Chabàs, after fighting for the Republic, suffered exile and died in Cuba in 1954. These truncated memories were reclaimed in the exhibition Juan Chabás, the attentive gaze of the Generation of '27, at the Casa de la Marquesa Valero de Palma.
The literary itinerary through Dénia included the Glorieta del País Valencià, where busts of Juan Chabàs and the poetess Maria Ibars are located. The day culminated with a conversation at the Social Center between Laura García Lorca and the poetess Àngels Gregori, under the title "Recovering the silenced voices. Lorca and democratic memory," which delved into the friendship and generational ties of both authors.
