The statements that have been read and heard in recent times are indicative of the polarizations generated from “Goodbye Master” until something rude like “a lefty less.” Between these extremes, the valuation of warrants Galeano chiaroscuro and nuances.
was born in Montevideo as Eduardo Hughes Galeano Germán Mary on September 3, 1940, within a family of high class Italian ancestors, Spanish, Welsh and German. With the passage of time take off those sources (omitting the last name in his “nom de plume” was certainly very deliberate), and knew earn a living as a factory worker, draftsman, painter, messenger, typist and teller bank. At 14, he sold his first policy the weekly Socialist Party caricature.
continued publishing cartoons under the pseudonym Gius, and twenty already integrated the journalistic team legendary weekly Marcha, from whose pages struck confronted with some reports that certain prejudices of the public: yet entitled remember Uruguayan symbol of evil, dedicated to juvenile Zelacio Naveiras Durán, alias “El Cacho”, which led in the quiet Montevideo society fifties similar to those calling today “iron fist” against juvenile offenders reactions.
was editor of March between 1961 and 1964, and spent the newspaper Epoch from that year until 1966. They had already begun his interest in literature and the Latin American and world politics: to those times (more precisely 1963) are his trip to China and his interview last emperor of that country, Puyi, who by then was a tidy gardener, as would tell later a film by Bernardo Bertolucci.
In 1963 he published his first book of short stories, The following day, where it was revealed as a meritorious narrator. A little later would come out in book chronicles his trip to China, a selection of his stories (including those of Cacho and Emperor) and an analysis of US intervention in Central America entitled Guatemala, key Latin American, which was not bad .
Popularity.
In 1971 published what must be the most popular of his books, although not necessarily the best: Open Veins of Latin America, a fighter and skew renege after trial, but that remains a benchmark for a sector of the Latin American left: in a survey conducted a few years ago between Uruguayan university was placed first among the books that those surveyed considered “more important to understand the Uruguay today,” an opinion that apparently did not consider that the book was written more than four decades and is not about Uruguay. Galeano however knew the time had past: in 2014 he admitted that they “will not be able to read it again,” adding that “the prose of traditional left is very heavy”
The coup of 1973 earned Galeano time in prison and then deportation. In Argentina he directed for some time the famous magazine Crisis. Then he fell on him another coup (the Videla), appeared in the lists of condemned by death squads, and ended up settling in Spain, where among other things he wrote three volumes of memoirs from heat, mix of history and fables about Latin America where it is not always easy to distinguish the truth of imagination.
returned to Montevideo in 1985, and Mario Benedetti and Hugo Alfaro promoted the creation the still existing Brecha, which was somewhat a continuation of March. There would become famous the back covers that wrote frequently (and that too often seemed to be the same).
It was certainly a master of words, business a suggestive and seductive, and an ability to prose often hides her that what he said had less substance than it looked. The word “thinker” has appeared frequently in the last hours to refer to it, and there are some observations.
It is almost unnecessary to recall (already known) that He suffered a hemiplegic often politically sensitive, very lends itself to condemn the “empire” and its local accomplices right, but rather more benevolent with seditious tyrannies left. Admittedly, in that respect was, however, far less genuflexo that, say, a Pablo Neruda and his Ode to Stalin, and more than once questioned, even more quietly in his diatribes against the right, governments “friends”.
Perhaps most disturbing of his thought has been promoting the idea can be summarized in the phrase “La Culpa’s had the Other” , a position that consists in believing that the world is divided into indigenous, workers and various Buenos Third One-piece, and capitalists, corporations and foreign interests’ll Toda malignancy and worse absolute responsible for the misfortune of the first.
It is possible that in his more lucid moments Galeano renege on this simplification, but certainly their readers often believed in it, and found in its pages an alibi to explain their problems. It is obvious that Latin Americans always be innocent, and evils are imposed on us from outside. Our chambonería also has a role in the table.
Versatile.
Admittedly anyway Galeano not only knew how to write, but his interests were varied. From his pen (or keyboard of your computer) came out fictions, political essays, questions of consumer society and of (some) mighty in power, and even books about football (Her Majesty football, 1968. Soccer in Sun and shadow, 1995). He was a fan of Nacional, if anyone is interested.
Can you assess today what will survive of his work? It can be risky to make forecasts. As Benedetti, unlike the truly great (Onetti, Idea) wrote too, and that’s always a downside: there is much litter production. But even when one is angry with him (and that happened quite often, especially when abused the magic of his words, and expressed his modulated voice and particularly suitable for contempt) had to suddenly recognize a happy twist, an intelligent paragraph, an original finding. Also had to take care of that seduction, and make an effort to detect (sometimes it was not difficult) the trap or the fallacy of reasoning that language wrapped. Nothing is black and white, not even him.
WITNESS.
The memory of his editor United States.
“Along with all those who have fought for democracy and an end to oppression, Monthly Review Press mourns the loss of our old friend, Eduardo Galeano “he said in a statement to El País, his American publisher, Michael D. Yates. “We are extremely proud to be the publisher of his masterpiece, Open Veins of Latin America and the acclaimed Days of love and war”.
Monthly Review Press published in English Open Veins (like Open veins of Latin America) in 1973. He was sustained success among the American left. When President Hugo Chavez gave it to President Obama in April 2009, the book became the best selling Amazon’s online store.
“More than any other book, The Open Veins, awakened the world to the true history of Latin America, a history of extreme exploitation by imperial powers and heroic struggle against such exploitation, “says Yates via email. “Maybe Isabel Allende is best expressed in his foreword to reissue 1997, when he wrote that ‘after the military coup of 1973 could not take much with me some clothes, family photos, a bag of soil in my garden, an old edition of the Odes of Pablo Neruda and the book of yellow caps Open Veins of Latin America ‘. Through his work and his generous spirit will live forever. “
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