A Calendar of Human History

Children of the Days

From Eduardo Galeano, one of Latin America's greatest living writers, author of the Memory of Fire trilogy, comes Children of the Days, a new kind of history that shows us how to remember and how to live 
 
This book is shaped like a calendar. Each day brings with it a story: a journey, feast or tragedy that really happened on that date, from all possible years and all corners of the world. From Abdul Kassem Ismail, the tenth-century Persian who never went anywhere without his library - all seventeen thousand books of it, on four hundred camels; to the Brazilian city of Sorocaba, which on February 8 1980 responded to the outlawing of public kissing by becoming one huge kissodrome; to July 1 2008, the day the US government decided to remove Nelson Mandela's name from its list of dangerous terrorists, Children of the Days takes aim at the pretensions of official history and illuminates moments and heroes that we have all but forgotten. Through this shimmering historical mosaic runs a common thread, one that joins humanity's darkest hours to its sweetest victories. Children of the Days is the story of our lives. 
 
'Passionate and humane ... so funny and so moving' - Philip Pullman 
 
'Galeano performs the sort of extraordinary feats of compassion, artistry, and imagination achieved in fiction by his fellow visionary Latin American writers, especially Borges, García Márquez, and Bolaño' - Booklist, starred review 
 
Eduardo Galeano is one of Latin America's most distinguished writers. He is the author of the three-volume Memory of Fire; Open Veins of Latin America; Soccer in Sun and Shadow; The Book of Embraces; Walking Words; Upside Down; and Voices in Time. Born in Montevideo in 1940, he lived in exile in Argentina and Spain for years before returning to Uruguay. His work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. He is the recipient of many international prizes.

Galeano's condensed history is, like life, at once dark and fascinating

A kind of epigrammatic excavation, uprooting stories that have been mislaid or misappropriated, and presenting them in their full glory, horror or absurdity . . . with a wry and scathing wit

Deeply humane . . . he has produced literature that will endure, monuments to the imagination

Marries meticulous journalistic detail with lyrical flair ... his inner Stephen Fry can point out that for Mayas, Jews, Arabs, the Chinese and others, January 1st doesn't herald the New Year at all, before adding the optimistic kicker that given the transience of time, this day is as good as any other "to be bright and joyous as the colours of an outdoor market"

Eduardo Galeano is one of Latin America's most distinguished writers. He is the author of the three-volume Memory of Fire; Open Veins of Latin America; Soccer in Sun and Shadow; The Book of Embraces; Walking Words; Upside Down; and Voices in Time. Born in Montevideo in 1940, he lived in exile in Argentina and Spain for years before returning to Uruguay. His work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. He is recipient of many international prizes.

This is not an official history of the world. It is about what happens between the cracks. It is about the forgotten, the overlooked, the marginalized. It contains a story from history for every day of the year: a journey, feast, tragedy, revolution or little-known occurrence that happened on that date but has slipped from memory. Resonant, unflinchingly radical, mordantly funny, it joins humanity's darkest hours to its sweetest victories. It is the story of our lives.

Eduardo Galeano

Football in Sun and Shadow

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