Mirrors - Stories of Almost Everyone

Eduardo Galeano is determined to forget that history is usually written by the victors. He favours the voiceless and the vulnerable. "Mirrors" is a narrative history of the world that condenses into its fragments radically altered visions of the landmark events on this earth, and of the landmark individuals who pass history from hand to hand in the official guidebooks. Yes, it is a book for the young utopian, or the utopian remnant left in all of us, but it is so outrageously bold, skilfully dramatic and ingeniously clever, refracting as it does any number of memorable characters and events through Galeano's lens, that even the exhausted ex-communist or cardboard-conservative reader might be amused, challenged or overturned by it. It is another kind of history writing altogether, reliant on the fireside storyteller's skills, but grounded in an unimpeachably wide and broad reading and understanding of events. "What Memory of Fire", Galeano's legendary interpretation of all of South American history, did for that one continent "Mirrors" does for the entire history of our sorry, sparkling planet.Review Quote'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.' Isabel Allende 'To publish Eduardo Galeano is to publish the enemy: the enemy of lies, indifference, above all of forgetfulness. His tenderness is devastating, his truthfulness furious.' John BergerBiographical NoteEDUARDO 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