Eduardo Galeano has died.
The Latin American writer Eduardo Galeano died early this monday, I just learned the news a couple hours ago and makes wonder why the good ones die and the bad ones who are creating wars in the Middle East and many other places stay. <em>((The sentence was a statement of wonder, therefore no question mark was needed. A lot of native speakers mess up on this too!))</em>
Of course, there are some people that will point him out as a bad man because of his revolucionary thinking and his support for leftist parties. Such parties which I will never support, even though I always felt comfortable reading some of his books. I was around 12 or 13 years old when I got the book "Las venas abiertas de América Latina" translated to "Open Veins of Latin America" I was totally amazed by the way he portrayed the situation of Latin America.
In this book he deeply analyzes the history of the continent, economic exploitation, and the political domination to which Latin America has been submitted, from European colonization until now. I have also been amazed and completely identified with his short poem called " Los nadies"/ The Nobodies" which goes like this:
The Nobodies:
Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping poverty: that one magical day good luck will suddenly rain down on them–will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn’t rain down yesterday, today, tomorrow, or ever. Good luck doesn’t even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.
The nobodies: nobody’s children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way.
Who are not, but could be.
Who don’t speak languages, but dialects.
Who don’t have religions, but superstitions.
Who don’t create art, but handicrafts.
Who don’t have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.
It's sad that I had to write about him now that he is gone. What a bad habit of us.
Write in peace Eduardo Galeano....
<em>((Wonderful command of the language, I wish you the best. As a Spanish learner, I would love to read some of Galeano's work, what a beautiful poem!))</em>