Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Germán María Hughes Galeano (Montevideo, September 3, 1940-Ib., April 13, 2015) was a Uruguayan journalist and writer, considered one of the most influential writers of the Latin American left.

His best-known books, The Open Veins of Latin America (1971) and Memory of Fire (1986), have been translated into twenty languages. His works transcend orthodox genres and combine documentary, fiction, journalism, political analysis and history.

Biography

Childhood

Eduardo Germán María Hughes Galeano was born in the city of Montevideo (Uruguay), into an upper-class Catholic family. His father was Eduardo Hughes Roosen and his mother, Licia Esther Galeano Muñoz, from whom he took the last name for his stage name. He had several jobs in his youth as: factory worker, cartoonist, painter, messenger, typist and bank teller, among other trades. At the age of 14 he sold his first political cartoon to the weekly El Sol, of the Socialist Party of Uruguay. At the age of 19 he would be editor in chief.During these years, Galeano would be trained in Marxism and read El Capital .

Trajectory

Galeano in 1984.

Galeano began his journalistic career in the early 1960s as editor-in-chief of Marcha, an influential weekly founded by Carlos Quijano, whom he considered his "journalistic father", and whose collaborators were Mario Vargas Llosa, Mario Benedetti, Adolfo Gilly, Alfredo Zitarrosa, Manuel Maldonado, and the brothers Denis and Roberto Fernández Retamar, among others. From 1964 he directed, for two years, the independent left-wing newspaper Época. Between 1965 and 1973 he was director of the Publications Department of the University of the Republic.

During his studies in Paris, he learned that the then president of the Argentine Nation, Juan Domingo Perón, had said that «If that boy is around here, I would like to see him». Although Galeano did not quite believe that this was true, he took advantage of a trip to call the phone number that he had been given to the general, who was in exile in Spain. However, it was true and Perón received it with open arms. He had a long talk with the former Argentine president, during which he asked him why he did not send signals more often, and he received the following answer: " God's prestige is that he makes himself visible very little ».

In 1971 he published his book The open veins of Latin America. Galeano submitted his book to the Casa de las Américas contest, receiving an honorable mention. Galeano conceived his book as a "dissemination manual [that] talks about political economy in the style of a love novel or pirate novel." the coup d'état of June 27, 1973, he was imprisoned and forced to leave Uruguay. His book The open veins of Latin America was censored by the dictatorships of Uruguay, Argentina and Chile, for which he went to live in Argentina, where he founded the cultural magazine Crisis .

In 1975, Galeano received an award from Casa de las Américas for his novel La canción de nosotros. In 1976 he flew to Spain, where in 1984 he wrote his famous trilogy Memory of the fuego (a review of the history of Latin America), considered his greatest work. However, during these years he spent a period in Stockholm as part of the international tribunal occupied by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In this regard, commented that it seemed to him that one of the culminating moments of the sessions was when a high religious leader, already of advanced age, exclaimed: «The communists have dishonored our daughters! They have taught them to read and write!"

At the beginning of 1985, he returned to Montevideo. In October of that year, together with Mario Benedetti, Hugo Alfaro and other journalists and writers who had belonged to the weekly Marcha , he founded Brecha , of the advisory council he continued to be a member until his death.

Between 1987 and 1989, he was a member of the National Pro Referendum Commission, set up to revoke the Law for the Expiration of the State's Punitive Claims, promulgated in December 1986 to prevent the prosecution of crimes against humanity committed during the military dictatorship in his country (1973-1985).

Last years

Galeano at the 2008 Madrid Book Fair.

In 2004, Galeano supported the victory of the Frente Amplio alliance and Tabaré Vázquez, in Uruguay. He wrote an article in which he mentioned that people voted using common sense. In 2005, along with leftist intellectuals such as Tariq Ali and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, he joined the advisory committee of the then recent Latin American television network TeleSUR. In Mexico he collaborated in the newspaper La Jornada .

In January 2006, he joined international figures such as Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Benedetti, Ernesto Sabato, Thiago de Mello, Carlos Monsiváis, Pablo Armando Fernández, Jorge Enrique Adoum, Luis Rafael Sánchez, Mayra Montero, Ana Lydia Vega and Pablo Milanés, in the demand for sovereignty for Puerto Rico; in addition to signing for the proclamation of independence of the country.

In February 2007, Galeano underwent an operation to treat lung cancer. In November 2008, he said of Barack Obama's victory:

"The White House will soon be Obama's house, but that White House was built by "black slaves." And I'd like to, and I hope he never forgets. »

In April 2009, former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez presented a copy of The Open Veins of Latin America to then-US President Barack Obama during the fifth Summit of the Americas, held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The fact caused it to become a bestseller on the Internet in a few hours.

In May 2009, in an interview he stated:

"Not only the United States, but some European countries have sown dictatorships all over the world. And they feel like they're able to teach what democracy is. »

In 2010, the Semanario Brecha instituted the Memory of Fire Award, which was planned for Galeano to award annually to a creator whose artistic values were combined with a social commitment to human rights. The first winner was the Spanish singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat, who received it on December 16, 2010, at the Teatro Solís in Montevideo. The second winner of the prize was Manuel Martínez Carril, renowned film critic and historical director of the Uruguayan Cinematheque, the largest film archive in Uruguay and an independent and self-managed institution emblematic for its cultural resistance that in 2012 celebrated 60 years of existence.

During the II Biennial of Books and Reading in Brasilia, in April 2014, he stated that "I would not read Las venas abiertas de América Latina again, because if I did I would faint". "I didn't know enough economics or politics when I wrote it."

Death

Galeano had suffered from lung cancer since 2007, which had forced him to reduce his public appearances, despite which he continued to participate in different events. After spending a week hospitalized at CASMU due to his illness, he passed away on April 13, 2015 at 8:20 a.m. (GMT-3), in his native Montevideo.

Marriages

He was married three times. The first time with Silvia Brando, with whom he had a daughter: Verónica Hughes Brando. Later, with Graciela Berro Rovira, with whom he had two children: Florencia and Claudio Hughes Berro. And finally, with Helena Villagra, who was his wife for 40 years.

Philosophy and politics

Galeano defined himself as a "special Marxist", coming to admire the Cuban revolution and criticize its errors. In his book Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, Galeano argued that poverty, The suffering and underdevelopment of most Latin American states is not a natural state, but one created by the economic and historical looting begun by Spain and other European countries, and later by the United Kingdom and the United States. Regarding this, he said: "Our wealth has always generated our poverty to feed the prosperity of others."

According to Galeano, we live in a world turned upside down. In his Sorry for the inconvenience, he wrote:

"Who are the righteous, and who are the unjust? If international justice really exists, why do you never judge the powerful? The authors of the ferocious butcher shops are not imprisoned. Is it because they have the keys to prisons? Is it just a world that every minute allocates $3 million to military expenditures, while every minute 15 children die for hunger or curable disease? Against whom is the so-called international community armed to the teeth? Against poverty or against the poor?"

Works

Awards, medals and distinctions

• 1999: Lannan Literary Awards for Freedom
• 2001: Doctorate Honoris Causa of the University of Havana
• 2005: Doctorate Honoris Causa of the University of El Salvador
• 2006: Graduate of the Order of May to Merit of the Argentine Republic
• 2007: Doctorate Honoris Causa of Veracruzana University
• 2008: Doctorate Honoris Causa of the National University of Córdoba
• 2009: Professor Honoris Causa of the University of Buenos Aires
• 2010: Stig Dagerman Award
• 2011: Doctorate Honoris Causa of the National University of Cuyo
• 2011: Medalla Bi-100
• 2001: Medalla Bi-200
• 2011: Casa de las Américas Award
• 2011: Deodoro Roca de la Federación Universitaria de Buenos Aires for "being an example for Latin American youth"
• 2013: Alba de las letras Award
• 2013: Doctorate Honoris Causa of the University of Guadalajara

Other tributes

• 2019: street mural by the artist José Gallino