Miguel Hernandez was a native of Orihuela, Spain and one of the most influential Spanish poets of the 20th century. His first book, Lunar Expert, was published in 1933, and followed quickly by Destruction or Love (1935), and Unceasing Lightning (1936). During the Spanish Civil War, he served in the Republican Army and depicted the horror of the war in much of his subsequent work, including Viento del Pueblo (1937) and El Hombre acecha (1938). In 1939, while trying to flee to Portugal, he was arrested by the Guardia Civil and imprisoned in Madrid. While in prison he wrote what many consider to be his finest work, but he contracted tuberculosis and died there on March 28, 1942. On the wall next to his cot, he wrote his final poem: “Farewell brothers, comrades, friends: Give my goodbyes to the sun and the wheat fields.”
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