Federico García Lorca was born in Fuentevaqueros on 5 June 1898 and was shot dead after the coup d'etat that led to the Spanish Civil War. He was a poet, playwright and prose writer. Although he wrote as much poetry as he did for the theatre, he gravitated more towards the latter form in his final years, participating not only in writing the works but also in the staging and editing processes. His first books of poetry are more modernist in style, following in the footsteps of the poets Antonio Machado, Rubén Darío and Salvador Rueda. In later works he combined Modernism with the style of the Vanguard movement, taking a traditional base as a starting point. He is currently the most widely read Spanish poet of all time.