Historically famous critics

Eduardo Galeano

1940-2015 · Uruguayan · 20th-21st century

Uruguayan writer who exposed five centuries of the plunder of Latin America

Galeano turned the history of a continent inside out, telling it from the perspective of the conquered, the enslaved, and the exploited rather than the victors. Open Veins of Latin America named the mechanisms by which colonial and capitalist powers drained the region’s wealth, and it became a manifesto for a generation despite censorship under the dictatorships he condemned. His lyrical, angry prose made structural injustice legible to ordinary readers and rescued what he called the kidnapped memory of his people.