Schavelzon Graham Agencia literaria Barcelona

Children of the Days

NARRATIVE, 2012. SIGLO XXI EDITORES NEW EDITION, 2021. 431 PAGES.

Did you know that supposedly the most famous episode in Genesis, featuring Adam, Eve and the apple, doesn't actually appear in the Bible? That the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the world two thousand three hundred years ago to within 60 miles? That Aristotle wrote that a woman was an incomplete man and that Saint Thomas of Aquinas claimed that women were a mistake of nature? That until 1990 the World Health Organization considered homosexuality a disease? That only eleven people attended Karl Marx's funeral, including the gravedigger? That until 2008, Nelson Mandela still featured on a US list of dangerous persons? That in Haiti, a traditional funeral procession walks in a zig-zag to confuse the deceased so they can't find their way back? That a language dies out every two weeks? Small achievements, forgotten heroes, lives that made a difference: this book is a compendium of stories for each day of the year that remind us we are the children of the stories we choose to tell ourselves (and those some have chosen to hide or manipulate). In short, it contains the best of Galeano: 366 days' worth.