21 March 2019: Emblazoned on the wall of Spain’s National Drama Centre is Boa Mistura’s painting of an Eduardo Galeano quote from The Open Veins of Latin America: “We are what we do to change what we are.” (Photograph by David Silverman/ Getty Images)
Considered a literary giant of Latin America’s Left, Eduardo Galeano was a novelist and journalist who wrote extensively about oppression and resistance in Latin America. In 1973, after a coup in Uruguay, Galeano was imprisoned and later went into exile in Argentina. When that country fell to a coup, his name was added to the death squad lists and he was forced to flee to Spain. He returned to Montevideo in 1985 and died there on 13 April 2015.