Written deliberately in the ‘style of a novel about love and pirates’, the author explained: ‘I confess I get a pain from reading valuable works by certain sociologists, political experts, economists and historians who write in code.’ As Chávez told reporters after meeting Obama: ‘This book is a monument in our Latin American history.’įirst published in 1971, Galeano’s work is a devastating account of the impoverishment of Latin America by foreign powers and multinational companies. He recalled a young woman quietly reading it to her companion on a bus in Bogotá, and then standing up to read it aloud to all the passengers. Galeano himself was most proud of the impact it had on the streets. It was one of only two books novelist Isabel Allende hurriedly packed in her suitcase when she fled Chile, after her cousin, the democratically-elected President Salvador Allende, was overthrown in Pinochet’s coup in 1973. Obama thought he was being given a sort of ‘little red book’ of Chávez’s sayings, but Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America was a book that had been cherished by the left in Latin America for decades. Within days, the book, Open Veins of Latin America by Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, had become a bestseller. The internationally-renowned history of colonial exploitation of Latin Americaīarack Obama looked bemused when, during his first visit to Latin America as US President in 2009, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez thrust a book into his hands.
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