In a Berkeley lecture hall 20 years ago, someone asked the speaker, Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, who his influences were. This is one story contained in Hugo Chavez' gift to Obama of Galeano's book, Open Veins of Latin America.
Galeano said that night that one of his main influences was American writer John dos Passos. There are plain connections between Galeano's work and dos Passos' U.S.A. Trilogy. Galeano's books, particularly Open Veins and the Memory of Fire Trilogy, helped a new generation of Americans rediscover dos Passos.
Sidebar 1: American novelist William Faulkner was a major influence on Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia-Marqez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Sidebar 2: Chavez revealed a literary taste few in North America suspected.
Sidebar 3: Chavez is much more "media savvy" than the talking meat heads of the US media uncovered. In 2005, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, and Nicaragua started their own international TV network, Telesur. Galeano is a member of its board.
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