Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Hughes Galeano (born September 3, 1940) is an Uruguayan journalist whose books have been translated into many languages. His works transcend orthodox genres, combining documentary, fiction, journalism, political analysis, and history. The author himself has denied that he is a historian: "I'm a writer obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America above all and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia."

Works

Las venas abiertas de América Latina (The Open Veins of Latin America) is arguably Galeano's best-known work, a powerful indictment of the exploitation of Latin America by foreign powers from the 15th century onwards. It was the first of his many books to be translated into English, many by Cedric Belfrage.

Related Topics:
15th century - English - Cedric Belfrage

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Memoria del fuego (Memory of Fire) is a three-volume narrative of the history of America, North and South. The characters are historical figures; generals, artists, revolutionaries, workers, conquerors and the conquered, who are portrayed in brief episodes which reflect the colonial history of the continent. It starts with pre-Columbian creation myths and ends in the 1980s.

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Memoria del fuego was widely praised by reviewers. Galeano was compared to John Dos Passos and Gabriel García Márquez. Ronald Wright wrote in the Times Literary Supplement: "Great writers... dissolve old genres and found new ones. This trilogy by one of South America's most daring and accomplished authors is impossible to classify."

Related Topics:
Reviewers - John Dos Passos - Gabriel García Márquez - Times Literary Supplement

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In New York Times Book Review Jay Parini praised as perhaps his most daring work The Book of Embraces, a collection of short, often lyrical stories presenting Galeano's views on emotion, art, politics, and values, as well as offering a scathing critique of modern capitalistic society and views on an ideal society and mindset. (The Book of Embraces was the last book Cedric Belfrage translated before he died in 1991.)

Related Topics:
Jay Parini - Cedric Belfrage

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Galeano is also an avid football fan; Soccer in Sun and Shadow (1995) is a review of the history of the game. Galeano compares it with a theater performance and with war; he criticizes its unholy alliance with global corporations but attacks leftist intellectuals who reject the game and its attraction to the broad masses for ideological reasons.

Related Topics:
Football - Leftist - Intellectual

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Galeano is a regular contributor to The Progressive and the New Internationalist, and has also been published in the Monthly Review and The Nation.

Related Topics:
The Progressive - New Internationalist - Monthly Review - The Nation

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