MONTEVIDEO (AP) – Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, whose “The Open Veins of Latin America” became a classic text for the left in the region and propelled the author to fame, died Monday at age 74.
Galeano had been ill with lung cancer for several months. His death was confirmed by the weekly publication Brecha, where he was a contributor.
Galeano’s work inspired several generations of Latin Americans with powerful, acerbic descriptions of the continent’s exploitation by capitalist and imperialist forces. The writer defined himself as someone who helped rescue “the kidnapped memory” of Latin America, a “despised and beloved land.”
No work reflected that more than “Open Veins,” published in 1971. In it, Galeano wrote that Chile with its vast nitrate deposits, Brazil with its abundant rain forests and small Venezuelan towns with oil reserves “had painful reasons to believe in the mortality of fortunes that nature bestows and imperialism usurps.”
“The world and Latin America have lost a maestro of the liberation of the people,” said Bolivian President Evo Morales, a left-leaning leader. “His messages and works have always been oriented toward defending the sovergnty and dignity of our peoples.”