Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
Technorati
Published on Saturday, June 6, 2009 by GRITtv
Eduardo Galeano: Stories of Almost Everyone
Why are so many people so scared? Maybe it's because of our rulers'
enormous "fear machine." So says Eduardo Galeano, in this rare and
charming interview. But there is reason for optimism. Find out just
why, back in April, Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez gave Barack Obama a copy of Galeano's book, Open Veins of Latin America. Eduardo Galeano is the author most recently of Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone, published by Nation Books. His poignant, poetic stories -- several of which he reads aloud here -- reveal history while inspiring more.
7 Comments so far
Show AllI discovered Galeano's 3-volume Memories of Fire while teaching in Ecuador. Half the teachers in the school joined me in racing through all three volumes, its revelations burning in our brains. It certainly inspired me, so that when I wrote The Mother Earth Inn, I had to dwell on the intersection of myth and reality, heart and mind, that one must embrace to begin to understand Latin America. Thanks for this interview with one of my heroes.
Now this, this Eduardo Galeano, would be a leader. The world desperately needs leaders from outside the U.S. to shine forth.
Un-'purchased' souls!
Thanks, CD, for making me aware of this man.
If you want to FEEL the history never taught in US schools - the extent to which we are numbed to Latin American humanity by the fear machine - as the other posters say - READ ANYTHING Galleano has written!
He could read a laundry list - and you'd end up knowing the story of a love in the life of the person who picked the cotton, and why they felt the way they did that day, and what time the background history rang in to the benefit or detriment of the person beside that person.
...and feel as though you have just been kissed...
Yes! feeling it is sure what he's about. on democracy now he spoke about a word somebody taught him- some combination of thinking and feeling something like pensemiento- if someone knows itfor sure, send it along
Sioux Rose
OLD GOAT: I think he'd be pleased with your "review." I wonder if his last name means GALLANT? Anyone know? There is a higher wit to these things like Kashkari and Madoff fitting their monikers, along with Henry (something to) Hyde, and born to Obey, and stay in the Bush (and out of politics, why don't you?), etc.
Eduardo is the greatest living writer in any language. Memory of Fire is great, so is Upside Down, and everything else he's written. What really sets him apart from others is not so much his skill with words, which is fabulous, but his heart. Read anything- you will not be diappointed
A rare and precious intellect. He can talk about and describe abuse and exploitation without sounding like he has a chip on his shoulder. In his book "Open Veins of Latin America" he compares the southern U.S. after the civil war to Latin America and exposes the same "business model" of the carpetbaggers everywhere. This book was banned in Uruguay, Argentina and Chile during their recent dictatorship periods because he exposed the corrupt business elite in these and other countries.