Voices of Time - by Eduardo Galeano (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A striking mosaic of memories, observations, and legends that together reveal the author's own story and a grand, compassionate vision of life itself

In this kaleidoscope of reflections, renowned South American author Eduardo Galeano ranges widely, from childhood to love, music, plants, fear, indignity, and indignation. In the signal style of his bestselling and much-admired Memory of Fire trilogy--brief fragments that build steadily into an organic whole--Galeano offers a rich, wry history of his life and times that is both calmly philosophical and fiercely political.

Beginning with blue algae, the earliest of life forms, these 333 vignettes alight on the Galeano family's immigration to Uruguay in the early twentieth century, the fate of love letters intercepted by a military dictatorship, abuses by the rich and powerful, the latest military outrages, and the author's own encounters with all manner of living matter, including generals, bums, dissidents, soccer stars, ducks, and trees. Out of these meditations emerges neither anger nor bitterness, but a celebration of a blessed life in a harsh world.

Poetic and passionate, scathing and lyrical, delivered with Galeano's inimitable mix of gentle comedy and fierce moral judgment, Voices of Time is a deeply personal statement from a great and beloved writer.

Review Quotes

"Whimsical, poignant, moving fiestas that skip through decades, even centuries, to gather up the far-flung voices of dictators and militants, exiles and immigrants, tango singers, soccer players, and writer friends, not to mention the testimonies of trees, rivers, and wind." --Vanity Fair

"Eduardo Galeano is one of South America's most distinguished literary figures." --The Washington Post

"Evoking the call of poets and singers, and the mysterious voices of wind, moon, trees, and dreams, Galeano remains, first and foremost, a wonder-struck raconteur." --The New Yorker

"Voices of Time consists of three hundred and thirty-three . . . electrical charges, occasions of wonderment, lessons in fraternity . . . There are birdsongs, Beethoven's electricity, and, of course, Eduardo Galeano, who is a fiesta." --The Nation

About the Author