Niece reveals inside story on crime of passion that inspired Lorca

NEWLY-PUBLISHED “Amor y traicion en el Cortijo del Fraile” reveals the story behind the Crime of Nijar.
The Cortijo del Fraile near Nijar is currently prominent in the media as the Junta and the present owner negotiate plans to prevent the building’s total collapse.
Its importance is less architectural, however, because the crime committed at the country property inspired Federico Garcia Lorca to write Bodas de Sangre.
The Blood Wedding tragedy was based on the story of Francisca Cañada, known as Paca La Coja, who eloped in July 1928 with her cousin Francisco Montes, shortly before her marriage to Casimiro Perez Pino.
She lived with her widowed father and her sisters at the cortijo where he was a tenant-farmer. She had a generous dowry which amounted to conscience money, it was said, because her father had hit her so hard as a baby that she was left with a permanent limp.
The lovers fled hours before the wedding ceremony but were intercepted by Francisca’s elder sister Carmen and her husband Jose Perez Pino, Casimiro’s brother.
Francisca’s was practically an arranged marriage, as Carmen and Jose supposedly wanted the younger sister’s money and property to remain in the family. Francisco was shot dead with his own gun, while Carmen attempted to strangle her sister.
Carmen was imprisoned but soon released while Perez Pino was released after serving three years of a seven-year prison sentence.
This is the accepted version of the tragedy but in “Amor y traicion en el Cortijo del Fraile” Josefina Gongora Perez, Francisca Cañada’s great niece, reveals the story behind the crime.
Not only did she know Francisca, who died in 1987 but she grew up hearing the family’s version, the author said at the book launch.