Any book suggestions?

[GRLMGC]

I'd like to get a book for my dad for Christmas. Can anybody recommend any suggestions? Preferably in Spanish. I'd also appreciate any good sources of Spanish language books.

[Judi Lynn]

1. A magnificent writer on South America is Eduardo Galeano, and his world-famous book,

"Open Veins of Latin America" is considered, as one knowledgeable DU'er wrote, "THE seminal Book on Latin America."

Las venas abiertas de América Latina
Eduardo Galeano

Here's a Wikipedia on the author, and a good list of his writings:

Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Hughes Galeano (born September 3, 1940) is an Uruguayan journalist,writer and one of the most outstanding representatives of Ibero-American literature. His books have been translated into many languages. His works transcend orthodox genres, combining documentary, fiction, journalism, political analysis, and history. The author himself has denied that he is a historian: "I'm a writer obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America above all and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia."

Life
Galeano was born in Montevideo to a middle class Catholic family of European descent.

As many Latin American young boys, Galeano dreamed of becoming a football (soccer) player; this was reflected in some of his works such as El fútbol a sol y sombra (Football In Sun and Shadow). In his teens Galeano worked in odd jobs — as a factory worker, a bill collector, a sign painter, a messenger, a typist, and a bank teller. At 14 years old Galeano sold his first political cartoon to the Socialist Party weekly El Sol.

He started his career as a journalist in the early 1960s as editor of Marcha, an influential weekly journal which had such contributors as Mario Vargas Llosa, Mario Benedetti, Manuel Maldonado Denis and Roberto Fernández Retamar. For two years he edited the daily Época and worked as editor-in-chief of the University Press.

In 1973, a military coup took power in Uruguay; Galeano was imprisoned and later was forced to flee. He settled in Argentina where he founded the cultural magazine, Crisis.

In 1976, when the Videla regime took power in Argentina in a bloody military coup, his name was added to the lists of those condemned by the death squads, and he fled again; this time to Spain, where he wrote his famous trilogy: Memoria del fuego (Memory of Fire ).

At the beginning of 1985 Galeano returned to Montevideo, where he continues to live.

Following the victory of Tabaré Vázquez and the Broad Front alliance in the 2004 Uruguayan elections marking the first left-wing government in Uruguayan history Galeano wrote a piece for The Progressive titled "Where the People Voted Against Fear" in which Galeano showed support for the new government and concluded that the Uruguayan populace used "common sense" and were "tired of being cheated" by the traditional Colorado and Blanco parties. <1>

Following the creation of TeleSUR, a pan-Latin American television station based in Caracas, Venezuela, in 2005 Galeano along with other left-wing intellectuals such as Tariq Ali and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel joined the network's 36 member advisory committee. <2>

Recently, on January 26, 2006, Galeano joined other internationally renowned figures and Latin American authors such as Nobel-laureate Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Benedetti, Ernesto Sábato, Thiago de Mello, Carlos Monsiváis, Pablo Armando Fernández, Jorge Enrique Adoum, Luis Rafael Sánchez, Mayra Montero, Ana Lydia Vega and world famous singer/composer Pablo Milanés, in demanding sovereignty for Puerto Rico and adding their name and signature to the Latin American and Caribbean Congress' Proclamation for the Independence of Puerto Rico, which approved a resolution favoring the island-nation's right to assert its independence, as ratified unanimously by political parties hailing from twenty two Latin American countries in November 2006. Galeano's demand for the recognition of Puerto Rico's independence was obtained at the behest of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP).

On February 10, 2007, Galeano underwent a successful operation to treat lung cancer.<1>

Works
Las venas abiertas de América Latina (The Open Veins of Latin America) is arguably Galeano's best-known work. In this book, he analyzes the history of Latin America as a whole from the time period of European contact with the New World to contemporary Latin America arguing against what he views as European and later U.S. economic exploitation and political dominance over the region. It was the first of his many books to be translated by Cedric Belfrage into English. It is a classic among the left of Latin America.

Memoria del fuego (Memory of Fire) is a three-volume narrative of the history of America, North and South. The characters are historical figures; generals, artists, revolutionaries, workers, conquerors and the conquered, who are portrayed in brief episodes which reflect the colonial history of the continent. It starts with pre-Columbian creation myths and ends in the 1980s. It highlights not only the colonial oppression that the continent underwent but particularly the long history of resistance, from individual acts of heroism to mass revolutionary movements.

Memoria del fuego was widely praised by reviewers. Galeano was compared to John Dos Passos and Gabriel García Márquez. Ronald Wright wrote in the Times Literary Supplement: "Great writers... dissolve old genres and found new ones. This trilogy by one of South America's most daring and accomplished authors is impossible to classify."

In New York Times Book Review Jay Parini praised as perhaps his most daring work The Book of Embraces, a collection of short, often lyrical stories presenting Galeano's views on emotion, art, politics, and values, as well as offering a scathing critique of modern capitalistic society and views on an ideal society and mindset. (The Book of Embraces was the last book Cedric Belfrage translated before he died in 1991.)

Galeano is also an avid football fan; Football in Sun and Shadow (1995) is a review of the history of the game. Galeano compares it with a theater performance and with war; he criticizes its unholy alliance with global corporations but attacks leftist intellectuals who reject the game and its attraction to the broad masses for ideological reasons.

Galeano is a regular contributor to The Progressive and the New Internationalist, and has also been published in the Monthly Review and The Nation.

List of writings follows:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Galeano






There are a lot of great Spanish speaking posters here. Hope one of them will see your post.



This photo was taken in Paraguay last year when Fernando Lugo was elected
President, the first President NOT from the Colorado Party in over 40 years
there. Eduardo Gallo, an invitied guest, center, is standing next to Lugo,
on the left.

[GRLMGC]

2. Thank you!

He'd probably like that.

[a la izquierda]

4. Ah, always a good book to get one

totally and utterly depressed :)

[Texano78704]

3. Anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

You should not have any problem finding his books in Spanish or English. My favorite is "Cien Años de Soledad." (One Hundred Years of Solitude). Garcia Marquez is a Nobel prize winner in the field of literature.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Just saw a book review on a biography of Marquez, remembered your recommendation.

(The review seems shallow, and that should not reflect upon the subject of the biography, of course.)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: a life
Email Printer friendly version Normal font Large font Helen Elliott
December 8, 2008

~snip~
With both popular and high-end appeal, Garcia Marquez is the unusual bird in the literary aviary. He has consistently stated that he wanted to be nothing less than "the best writer in the world" and at times the stately, translucent prose and searing psychological penetration come close.

He is also a joker of some magnificence. Accepting the 1982 Nobel prize for literature, he wore the white linen tunic and trousers of the Colombian peasant in honour of his grandfather. Some in the audience thought he was wearing his underwear.

Garcia Marquez once said that "the appetite for power is the result of an incapacity to love". Martin believes that love and power are always Garcia Marquez's subjects and he uses the evidence of real people and actual incidents to crack open the lustrous fiction. The ordinary reader might happily skip some of the labyrinthine detail but Garcia Marquez scholars will feast.

More:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/books/book-reviews/gabriel-garcia-marquez/2008/12/05/1228257285129.html

[a la izquierda]

5. What does your dad like?

Empire's Workshop by Greg Grandin is great, though I do not know if it has been translated into Spanish yet. He's written two other wonderful, but incredibly depressing books as well. All in English, though.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed is one of the best books I've ever read, and I guarantee it's been translated into Spanish. It's written by Paulo Freire. Then of course there's El Che's works.
Also, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa, an 1000 page bio of the man written by Friedrich Katz. I think that is also in Spanish at this point.

Some of the great 19th century works of literature: Nuestra America by Marti and anything by Sarmiento. They're a bit dry, but interesting...

[roody]

6. Lluvia de Oro, a spellbinding saga that the author claims is true

A story of immigration to US during the Mexican Revolution.

[msedano]

8. how about a dad and me pair?

get a spanish and english version of the same work.

several Laura Esquivel titles are available in the US this way

like water for chocolate
como agua para chocolate

as swift as desire
tan veloz como el deseo

Visit Wings Press. does a lot of Latin American titles, bilingual publications, e.g.

Ismaelillo, Jose Marti poems

http://www.wingspress.com/book.cfm/6/Ismaelillo/José-Martí/

And then there's the elegant writing of Isabel Allende, also available in the US in both languages.
The Infinite Plan
El Plan Infinito

Here's to good reading for your Dad.

mvs