The Art of Memory: Eduardo Galeano
Eduardo Galeano is, to my mind, the very best kind of writer. Defying categories, playing with media, voice and form, he is a journalist, novelist and poet. For me he is also, strangely enough, one of the clearest routes that brought me to public history. I found The Book of Embraces on the bookshelf at a friend's house almost 20 years ago. I asked if I could borrow it and he said it wasn't his cup of tea, "Keep it." Soon after, another friend saw it on my bookshelf and asked if he could borrow it. Off it went, just a few short weeks after it had arrived. I still have that copy. In it, my friend had inscribed: "I loved this book so much, I don't really want to part with it. Still, I don't want to hang onto it a second longer when you've not yet read it."