Open Veins of Latin America

Born in 1940, Eduardo Galeano is one of Uruguay’s most prominent leftist journalists, poets, and novelists. Shortly after publishing Open Veins of Latin America in 1971, a military coup took over the Uruguayan government, forcing Galeano to political exile in Argentina. The book was considered so politically incendiary by the conservative right-wing that it was banned in Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina.

In an excerpt from his book, Days and Nights of Love and War, Galeano writes:

In Latin America a literature is taking shape and acquiring strength, a literature […] that does not propose to bury our dead, but to immortalize them […] perhaps it may help to preserve for the generations to come […] ‘the true name of all things’ (16).

This statement highlights Galeano’s drive to write Open Veins of Latin America. He views his writing of the book as part of the important political work that writers must do. For Galeano, literature has the power to tell the truth about the events of history to challenge the accounts of those in power. By speaking to the history of those most marginalized, literature has the power to challenge the narrative of the dominant classes.

In the 25th anniversary version of Open Veins of Latin America, Chilean author Isabel Allende wrote the forward for the book, describing Galeano as having “more first-hand knowledge of Latin America than anybody else I can think of, and uses it to tell the world of the dreams and disillusions, the hopes and failures of its people” (10).