The author shares brief anecdotes about life in South America, memories of incidents from his own past, and meditations on reading, literature, and freedom
The internationally acclaimed last work by the legendary Latin American writer Master storyteller Eduardo Galeano was unique among his contemporaries (Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa among them) for his commitment to retelling our many histories, including the stories of those who were disenfranchised. A philosopher poet, his nonfiction is infused with such passion and imagination that it matches the intensity and the appeal of Latin America's very best fiction. Comprised of all new material, published here for the first time in a wonderful English translation by longtime collaborator Mark Fried, Hunter of Stories is a deeply considered collection of Galeano's final musings and stories on history, memory, humor, and tragedy. Written in his signature style -- vignettes that fluidly combine dialogue, fables, and anecdotes -- every page displays the original thinking and compassion that has earned Galeano decades and continents of renown.
A spirited young woman conquers the high seas in this bold historical romance from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Captive Passions. Proud and beautiful Sirena Córdez was once commander of her own ship, battling pirates to avenge her sister’s violent death. But Sirena’s life as the Sea Siren ends when she meets Regan van der Rhys. Handsome, ruthless, and as fearless as she, Regan is the only man who can possess her, body and soul. Once enemies on water, they become lovers on land until their marriage is shattered by heartbreaking tragedy. Abandoned by her husband and left to face an uncertain future, the Sea Siren hoists sail again, embarking on a passion-filled voyage to reclaim her destiny . . . Praise for the writing of Fern Michaels “Heartbreaking, suspenseful, and tender.” —Booklist on Return to Sender “A big, rich book in every way . . . I think Fern Michaels has struck oil with this one.” —Patricia Matthews on Texas Rich “Fast-moving . . . Entertaining . . . A roller-coaster ride of serendipitous fun.” —Publishers Weekly on Mr. and Miss Anonymous
Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe. Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably. This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende's inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.
Dealing largely with the many aspects of love (from the sublime to the ridiculous) and with the trials and terrors that actors must face, the plays mingle hilarity and poignance as they explore the problems that romance--and the need for self-expression--can engender. We encounter, for example, an actor struggling through a particularly devastating rehearsal; two teenagers gingerly dissecting a frog--and their sex lives; a bridegroom who finds that he really loves the bridesmaid rather than the bride; a woman (masquerading as a man) who tries to pick up a man (masquerading as a woman) in a bar; a couple chattering through a "splatter film" whose conversation is even wilder, and more intriguing, that the soundtrack of the movie; and assortment of sad/funny monologues about the various perils (and pleasures) of the acting profession; a wildly funny farce involving a man about to undergo a vasectomy, a shockingly inept doctor, an irate (and pregnant) nurse, and the doctor's madly jealous wife.
The title of We Say No is drawn from a speech delivered by Eduardo Galeano in support of democracy in Chile in 1988. It eloquently states the case that by saying no to a global system of greed, repression, and exploitation one says yes to the universal values of equality, freedom, and love. All of the thirty-four pieces that comprise this book affirm the elemental struggle of the forgotten and the dispossessed for simple human dignity. From vivid portraits of the "last emperor" Pu Yi, Pele, and Che Guevara to a defense of the political nature of the literary enterprise in Latin America to stinging critiques of the end-of-history thesis and the "celebrations" of Columbus's voyages of discovery (and conquest) to the genesis of Memory of Fire, the pieces in We Say No are united by Galeano's unique ability to blend stirring political commitment, a magical literary facility and a large historical imagination into a seamless web. The result is a volume indispensable to the growing legion of Galeano's American readers and to all concerned with the issues of peace and justice in the Americas and, indeed, in the entire post-Cold War world.
A "sublime and gripping novel ... about hope: that within the world's messy pain there is still room for transformation and healing" (Madeline Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Circe), from the acclaimed author of Cantoras. “In the president’s excruciating (and sometimes humorous) encounters with his strangely healing frog ... De Robertis daringly invites us to imagine a man’s Promethean struggle to wrest control of his broken psyche under the most dire circumstances possible.” —The New York Times Book Review At his modest home on the edge of town, the former president of an unnamed Latin American country receives a journalist in his famed gardens to discuss his legacy and the dire circumstances that threaten democracy around the globe. Once known as the Poorest President in the World, his reputation is the stuff of myth: a former guerilla who was jailed for inciting revolution before becoming the face of justice, human rights, and selflessness for his nation. Now, as he talks to the journalist, he wonders if he should reveal the strange secret of his imprisonment: while held in brutal solitary confinement, he survived, in part, by discussing revolution, the quest for dignity, and what it means to love a country, with the only creature who ever spoke back—a loud-mouth frog. As engrossing as it is innovative, vivid, moving, and full of wit and humor, The President and the Frog explores the resilience of the human spirit and what is possible when danger looms. Ferrying us between a grim jail cell and the president's lush gardens, the tale reaches beyond all borders and invites us to reimagine what it means to lead, to dare, and to dream.
In Mirrors, Galeano smashes aside the narrative of conventional history and arranges the shards into a new pattern, to reveal the past in radically altered form. From the Garden of Eden to twenty-first-century cityscapes, we glimpse fragments in the lives of those who have been overlooked by traditional histories: the artists, the servants, the gods and the visionaries, the black slaves who built the White House, and the women who were bartered for dynastic ends
Unfurling like a medieval book of days, each page of Eduardo Galeano's Children of the Days has an illuminating story that takes inspiration from that date of the calendar year, resurrecting the heroes and heroines who have fallen off the historical map, but whose lives remind us of our darkest hours and sweetest victories. Challenging readers to consider the human condition and our own choices, Galeano elevates the little-known heroes of our world and decries the destruction of the intellectual, linguistic, and emotional treasures that we have all but forgotten. Readers will discover many inspiring narratives in this collection of vignettes: the Brazilians who held a "smooch-in" to protest against a dictatorship for banning kisses that "undermined public morals;" the astonishing day Mexico invaded the United States; and the "sacrilegious" women who had the effrontery to marry each other in a church in the Galician city of A Coruna in 1901. Galeano also highlights individuals such as Pedro Fernandes Sardinha, the first bishop of Brazil, who was eaten by Caete Indians off the coast of Alagoas, as well as Abdul Kassem Ismael, the grand vizier of Persia, who kept books safe from war by creating a walking library of 117,000 tomes aboard four hundred camels, forming a mile-long caravan. Beautifully translated by Galeano's longtime collaborator, Mark Fried, Children of the Days is a majestic humanist treasure that shows us how to live and how to remember. It awakens the best in us.