Career
Martínez Sierra"s literary career began at the age of 17 with the publication of El poema del trabajo ("The Poem of Work", 1898), a volume of poetry in the modernist style. His subsequent books of poetry included Diálogos fantásticos ("Fantastic Dialogues", 1899), Flores de escarcha ("Frost Flowers", 1900) and Louisiana casa de primavera ("The House of Spring", 1907). His major works include Louisiana sombra del padre ("Shadow of the Father", 1909), Primavera en otoño ("Spring in Autumn", 1911), Sólo para mujeres ("Foreign Women Only", 1913), Mamá ("Mama", 1913) and El reino de Dios ("The Kingdom of God", 1916).
Canción de cuna ("Cradle Song", 1911), which has been called his "masterpiece", was popular across the Spanish-speaking world, and an English-language adaptation transferred to Broadway in 1927.
Several of Martínez Sierra"s plays were adapted into films, including Canción de cuna (as Cradle Song, director Mitchell Leisen, 1933). Since the publication of her memoir Gregorio y yo ("Gregorio and I", 1953), her authorship of many of his plays has been increasingly recognised by scholars.
Martínez Sierra"s influence was largely as a publisher and director Through his publishing house, Renacimiento ("Rebirth"), he translated the work of William Shakespeare, Maurice Maeterlinck and Santiago Rusiñol, and introduced the work of European playwrights including George Bernard Shaw and Luigi Pirandello to Spain.
In 1917 he was appointed Director of Madrid"s Teatro Eslava and remained there until 1925, transforming the venue into Spain"s first Art Theatre.
Amongst a series of Spanish and foreign playwrights whose work he produced "in a new, forward-looking style", it was at Martínez Sierra"s invitation that Federico García Lorca created and staged, at the Eslava, his first play, El maleficio de la mariposa ("The Curse of the Butterfly"), in 1920.