The Book Of Embraces By Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano has the unique ability to describe complex situations and events with very few words, without reducing its value and transmitting a piece of people’s everyday lives and experiences. He uses this ability in The book of embraces, a marvelous group of short stories that allow the reader to get close to the different realities of the world in where we live, and to relate to other human beings through a glimpse of their existences.
Despite the fact that the book does not focus on a single region of the world – the book contains stories located in New York, Madrid and Paris, for example – the majority of its stories are centered in Latin America, a diverse and complex region in where there are multiple challenges and issues; but
It is also a place characterized by its racial, cultural and linguistic diversity, although these factors are often used as a way to separate the ethnically diverse population and are a reason to not guarantee their basic human rights.
Knowing this, Galeano is transparent in showing everything, the good, the bad and the ugly throughout the book, insisting on giving the reader a sample of many of the situations that affect Latin Americans every day.
The book of embraces was written in the early 1990s, in a moment in which the continent was beginning a process of changes and transformations influenced by the end of some military regimes, and the defeat of armed groups to start a new era in which new democracies were formed. However, many of the topics in which Galeano focuses are still a reality in the region and the references to social conflicts remain as testimonies of violent and difficult times in Latin America.
Galeano is also able to visibilize that the continent is a product and a consequence of colonization, which is described as a period of dispossession and restriction for indigenous and Afro-descendant people, which ended formally but left instead still a type of colonialism that “convinces you that is not possible to speak not possible to act, not possible to
Religion, then, is also addressed by the author’s narrative, but is understood as an aspect not exclusively related to Catholicism or traditional religious practices, but that rather shows Latin American spirituality in its relation to the environment and the nature; and the faith and beliefs that hold.
The book also features multiple stories that narrate the conflict and post conflict regions and the extent to which many countries were affected by civil wars, guerrillas and terrorist groups, giving special consideration to the victims and their families, who suffered the consequences of the violence that seems to affect the region permanently. By doing so, he does not only focused on telling stories of violence and misfortune, but rather recognizing the post conflict era as a moment in which reconciliation and healing is needed to move