Hunter of Stories

Starred review from July 17, 2017
This collection of aphorisms, anecdotes, and retellings marks the final work completed by famed Uruguayan writer Galeano (Soccer in Sun and Shadow) before his death in 2015. In a manner similar to 2009’s Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone, entries come in thematic groupings exploring modes of oppression and imagination across time, place, and circumstance. Entries are rarely more than a page and often much shorter, yet each is meticulously sculpted, conveying an incident, act, or idea in danger of being forgotten, and doing so with the lively and inimitable voice of a passionate rebel and storyteller. Discussing native histories, environmental issues, feminism, political revolutions, race relations, and his beloved soccer, among other areas of concentration, Galeano travels effortlessly across a wide-ranging panoply of near-forgotten people whose deeds more often than not give the lie to more official accounts. With a keen sense for ironic reversals and equal measures of sly humor, empathy, anguish, and hope, this compendium of bite-size stories of resistance (elegantly translated by longtime collaborator Fried) is a worthy addition to the celebrated oeuvre of a writer who remains a towering figure both as an artist and a voice of conscience across Latin America and the world.

September 1, 2017
The final work of the esteemed Uruguayan journalist and social critic."Writing is tiring, but it consoles me." These are among the last words written by Galeano (Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History, 2015, etc.). They're from "A Few Things About the Author," one of the more than 200 stories, ruminations, reflections, and proverbs, most just one short page, collected and published shortly before he died in 2015. Fried, his longtime translator, writes in a note that the author possessed a "habitual optimism about the human condition" and an "eternal pessimism about the course of civilization." For legions of soccer fanatics around the world, Galeano was known for his magisterial Soccer in Sun and Shadow, about which he writes, "I wanted to help fans of reading lose their fear of soccer, and fans of soccer lose their fear of books." For many others, he was known for his unrelenting and indefatigable leftist critiques of historical colonialism in the Americas, dictatorships, political evils, and social injustice "in the eternal battle of indignation against indignity." These pieces, more rueful and reflective and less strident than his earlier writings, still reveal a man who will not sit by when he witnesses people "turning the world into an immense lunatic asylum and an overcrowded cemetery." He skewers dictator Augusto Pinochet: the "man who burned the most books and read the fewest was the owner of the heftiest library in Chile." For Francisco Franco, "killing was a pleasure and it mattered little if the cadaver was a crow, a duck, or a Republican." Galeano could also be witty and humorous. When the stolen Mona Lisa turned up two years later in 1913, "it was evident that the experience had not diminished the most mysterious smile in the world; being stolen only enhanced its prestige." Although some of these pieces are on the thin side, this is a fitting final flourish for a literary giant of the Latin American left.

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September 15, 2017

Galeano (1940-2015) was a Uruguayan literary colossus and leftist intellectual, ranking with novelists Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa. But he won no Nobel Prize in Literature--perhaps because he wrote kaleidoscopic histories rather than grand novels, or perhaps because he never took himself seriously. Galeano loved people and excoriated civilization. His trenchant social critique and playful style suffuse these posthumously published vignettes: some deeply personal, many fiercely political, others simply wise and penetrating, and nearly all humorous, whether satirical or self-mocking. He is outraged and empathetic for the wretched of the Earth, whose sufferings--and resistance--he recounts, endowing them with dignity. Galeano is famous for lyrical treatments of history (Open Veins of Latin America), soccer (Soccer in Sun and Shadow), and the human experience generally (Mirrors), and this book is no exception. The prose is profoundly clear and few chapters run beyond a page in length. Hemingwayesque in brevity, the vignettes are powerful enough to elicit tears and laughter. VERDICT A swan song from one of Latin America's greatest storytellers, this work is rich with social conscience, humor, insight, outrage, and love. Recommended to all.--Michael Rodriguez, Univ. of Connecticut

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2017
Before succumbing to lung cancer in 2015, master storyteller Galeano completed a collection of short fiction, composed during what turned out to be his final book tour across Europe and the Americas. Upon the Uruguayan maestro's passing, an additional discovery of assorted scribblings was added to the manuscript, for a total of more than 200 fable-like reflections, aphoristic musings, sardonic cuentos (stories), and pithy observations. Topics span freely across time and space, arranged with a novelist's gift for narrative sequence, a journalist's skepticism, and a storyteller's flair for dramatic tension. Each brief entry provides a snapshot into the rich imagination of one of the twentieth century's finest writers. Here Tezcatlipoca, a Mexican deity of darkness, bumps heads with Brahma, a Hindu creator god, and both share the page with colonists and conquistadors, legendary characters, historical figures, and everyday denizens of this shrinking globe. Galeano's last words ripple with sharp critiques of U.S. imperialism, military occupation, and capitalist injustice, a fitting finale for a lifetime of incisive writing. This posthumous collection will provide fans with a departing capstone and can serve as an entry point for new readers before they dive into his iconic works, including Open Veins of Latin America (1973) and more recent fiction, like Mirrors (2009).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)