EDUARDO GALEANO's works, which have been translated into 28 languages, include Memory of Fire; Soccer in Sun and Shadow; Days and Nights of Love and War; The Book of Embraces; Open Veins; and Voices of Time. Born in Montevideo, he fled in 1973 after the military coup's leaders imprisoned him, and lived in exile first in Argentina until death threats there forced him onward to Spain, until returning to Uruguay in 1985 upon the collapse of the military dictatorship. He has lived there since, active in journalism, television and politics. He was awarded the first Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom.

There is a mysterious power in Galeano's storytelling. He uses his craft to invade the privacy of the reader's mind, to persuade him or her to read and to continue reading to the very end, to surrender to the charm of his writing and the power of his idealism