Gypsy Ballads

Romancero Gitano (translated as Gypsy Ballads) is a poetry collection by Spanish writer Federico García Lorca, published in 1928. It is his best known book of poetry. It is composed of eighteen romances with subjects like the night, death, the sky, and the moon. All of the poems deal with the Romani people and their culture.

The work reflects the pains of a people who live on the margins of society and who feel persecuted by the representatives of authority and for their struggle against that authority. However, Garcia Lorca himself points out that his interest is focused not on describing a specific situation, but on the clash that occurs again and again between the forces encountered: in a poem that describes the struggle between the Civil Guard and the gypsies, he calls these sides "Roman" and "Carthaginian" to imply the permanence of the conflict.