Voices of Time: A Life in Stories (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Mark Fried (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

This Uruguayan writer has a way of producing stories reminiscent of folktales, testimonials, and reflections, and of stitching them together into vast historical tapestries, a technique seen to greatest effect in his trilogy "Memory of Fire." The current collection, subtitled "A Life in Stories," includes excursions into the Mayan concept of time, Peruvian cave paintings, and child laborers in Pakistan, and features walk-on appearances by Hernán Cortés, Diego Maradona, and Michael Jackson. Galeano can be fierce and defiant, as when he inveighs against the I.M.F., the World Bank, and assorted dictators, but there is always something celebratory to his style. Evoking the call of poets and singers, and the mysterious voices of wind, moon, trees, and dreams, Galeano remains, first and foremost, a wonder-struck raconteur.
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

From The Washington Post

Some of the reflections -- both cosmic and personal -- in Eduardo Galeano's Voices of Time: A Life in Stories (translated from the Spanish by Mark Fried; Metropolitan, $25) consume as much as two pages, but most of are shorter, and some are nearly as compact as haiku. An entry might draw upon mythology. In "A Dictionary of Colors," Galeano explains the rationale behind the plumage chosen for self-decoration by Indians living along the Paraguay River: "The macaw's red feathers call down the rain, and his yellow ones summon good news. And the sad gray feathers of the rhea give verve to the human song."

But an entry in this idiosyncratic collection of musings could just as well be a meditation on modern events. "First Music" focuses on astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson as they stood on a ridge in the Appalachians one night in 1964, "trying to capture radio waves emitted by who knows which impossibly far-off galaxy." They kept hearing a buzz that hurt their ears, but only later did they figure out the momentous cause: "the very blast that began time and space and the planets and everything else" -- that is, the Big Bang. Galeano crowns the vignette with a poetic fillip: "I'd venture to say that the echo still resounded in the air because it wanted us to hear it, since we little Earth people are also echoes of that long-ago cry of the newborn universe."

Eduardo Galeano is one of South America's most distinguished literary figures, best known for his brilliant Memory of Fire trilogy, a fictionalized history of Latin America that won him the 1989 American Book Award. He is also a journalist and historian, renowned for his probing criticism.

But his work can be charming, too. Some of the pieces in Voices of Time seem like throwbacks to Art Linkletter's "Kids Say the Darnedest Things" franchise -- except that Galeano's kids are verbally brilliant rather than cutesy. In "Curious People," a 9-year-old boy wonders, "If God made himself, how did he make his back?" In "The Teacher," a 6th grader in Montevideo confides to a visitor after everyone in her entire class has been given an award -- that "she loved her teacher . . . loved him very very very much, because he'd taught her not to be afraid of being wrong."

The World in Bite Sizes
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books; 1st edition (May 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805077677
• ISBN-13: 978-0805077674
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #424,829 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Modest but Winning, June 21, 2006

By	Bartolo (New York City, New York USA) - See all my reviews

Eduardo Galeano's lyrical and poetic literary style floats like a butterfly; when his subjects are the political and social outrages of history, it can also sting like a bee. In his earlier works this combination is extremely potent: one is given one's historical instruction in small but powerful installments, always keyed to the individual, close to the ground, intimate. Then all the more memorable for their emotional wallop. When his subjects are the powerful and unscrupulous, Galeano knows how to draw blood, but in the courtliest way, with surgical precision and surprise.

Most of the small narratives (some only a paragraph) in "Voices of Time" show us Galeano at his gentlest. Like Borges he's an ironist, the significances and twists and turns in his tales giving heft to their brevity. A few detail the trademark social and economic outrages that comprised the history of Latin America and the Third World generally, but many involve Galeano's friends, pets, family, non-political occurences and observations. If you remember Paul Harvey's short radio biographies (revealing the name of his subject only in the last sentence), you'll have an idea of a favorite Galeano technique.

If you've never read Galeano before, I'd recommend his earlier books over this one, "Upside Down" or "Century of the Wind;" you'll then see why he's considered one of Latin America's greatest journalist-historians. But if you're a Galeano fan and are wondering whether this volume is worthwhile, please consider this a rave. "Voices of Time" is a modestly scaled work, grandfatherly in tone, but given its intentions, perfect.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Further Ruminations by Uruguay's Galeano, July 8, 2006

By	Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

For readers who bask in the repeated perusals of Eduardo Galeano's books, such as the endlessly entertaining and informing 'Centuries of the Wind', then buying and reading 'Voices in Time: A Life in Stories' will come as no surprise. Galeano's Spanish thoughts are beautifully translated by Mark Fried and as is the case in all translations of books of other languages, the translator owns a significant portion of the success of the book.

Galeano continues his idiosyncratic manner of writing in brief bits and pieces of thoughts, responses, fits of anger, musings on beauty, and responses to the world in which we struggle to live. The short 'stories' contained in this volume began as newspaper quips and the 'VOICES OF TIME' is more a compendium of various excerpts rather than a novel. Galeano writes with mischief, humor, rancor, anger, and philosophical views about subjects that range form global importance such as the war in Iraq, the vanishing species of our planet, of poets (Isaac Asimov and Rafael Alberti) and of family and friends.

At times the brevity of Galeano's style can become annoying (there are 333 stories in this book of almost the same number of pages!), and the quality of what he has to contribute on his subjects varies from invigorating to dull excesses. But for those who love Galeano's lyrical style of dropping petals on the surface of the pond that serves as the matrix for thought, VOICES OF TIME will not disappoint. Not as strong as his previous work, perhaps, but even mediocre Galeano is a treat! Grady Harp, July 06

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful and lyrical book, July 7, 2006

By	Pauls Toutonghi (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

Eduardo Galeano is possibly one of the most important writers working in today's marketplace. His committments to idealogical matters, his belief in poetry, his unique narrative voice, his willingness to speak out again oppression -- all of these make him a strong and vital writer.

His prose is tremendous. Buy this book! Then, buy the Book of Embraces, Memory of Fire, and Soccer in Sun and Shadow. I've loved his work for years, and every new book is a joy.