Eduardo Galeano, biography of a libertarian

Eduardo Galeano’s work has a special magic. His thing is history, but also chronicle and poetry. He defended the right to think and feel at the same time, refusing any pretense of objectivity.

The name of Eduardo Galeano is synonymous with good literature, social commitment and ethical values that are proof against anything.. His work The Open Veins of Latin America It is a true classic, which together with Memory of fire They have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Eduardo Galeano was a writer difficult to classify. Many times in his texts he combined reality with fiction. The feeling with the thought. In fact, he is credited with inventing the term “sentipensante language” to refer to that particular combination of objectivity and subjectivity.

“We are in the midst of packaging culture. The marriage contract matters more than love, the funeral more than the dead, the clothes more than the body and the mass more than God.”.

-Eduardo Galeano-

One of the most interesting aspects of Eduardo Galeano is that he was an intellectual autodidact. He did not obtain a formal professional degree, although he did have several doctorates. honoris causa. Perhaps, for this reason, his work has a special strength: that of someone who takes note of reality with the senses and reading, and not through a teacher.

A writer in Montevideo

Eduardo Galeano was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, on September 3, 1940.. His real name was Eduardo Germán María Hughes Galeano, but he took his mother’s surname to sign his literary creations. His family had good financial resources and was deeply Catholic.

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During his childhood, Eduardo Galeano dreamed of being a saint or a footballer whichever came first. However, at the age of 14 he made a solitary drawing and took it to the weekly “El sol”, which he ended up buying. He became a caricaturist in this medium, which belonged to the Socialist Party.

At the age of 19 he had an existential crisis and attempted suicide. . He never fully explained why.. The truth is that after coming out of a coma, he changed his life radically. It was then that he began to call himself Eduardo Galeano and then to write in the weekly Marchhis true school as a writer.

Eduardo Galeano in exile

In 1973 one of the fiercest dictatorships was installed in Uruguay. It arrested him and precipitated his exile to Argentina. There, and at just 32 years old, he published his masterpiece The Open Veins of Latin America. I wanted it to be a political economy book, but it ended up being an exciting history book, who became an icon of Latin American literature.

By then he had already been married twice and had three children. In Argentina, he was co-founder of Crisis Magazine. However, the dictatorship was also imposed in that country in 1976 and he soon knew that he had to leave there. Before that he met Helena Villagra at a barbecue. She would be his companion for the next 40 years..

His works were banned in Uruguay, Argentina and Chile, by the three dictators in power. Shortly after, he went into exile in Spain and wrote his famous trilogy there. Memory of fire. It was inspired by a Greek poem and was put together in pieces, there are even parts that were written on napkins.

The return and the end

Galeano was able to return to Uruguay at the beginning of 1985, when the dictatorship fell in his country. Faithful to his tradition, he founded a new weekly: Gap, in the company of Mario Benedetti and other intellectuals. He also became a frequent customer of the cafe. The Brazilian, one of many poet cafes in Montevideo. There he sat near the window. Currently that place sells “Café Galeano”, in tribute to the writer.

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Eduardo Galeano became involved again with left-wing political and intellectual groups. In 2004, he participated in the first victory of that sector in his country, led by Tabaré Vásquez. He then celebrated Pepe Mujica’s rise to power. He was also part of the advisory committee of the Telesur channel in Venezuela and began writing weekly for the newspaper. The Dayfrom Mexico.

In 2007, doctors discovered that the writer had lung cancer. Since then, health problems were frequent and he was seen less and less in public. He distrusted new technologies and that is why he wrote by hand until the end of his life. He also distrusted extreme rationality and all forms of authoritarianism., whether from the right or the left. He died at age 74, on April 13, 2015.