A man from the village of Neguá,

on the coast of Colombia,

managed to rise up in the sky

and back he told:

said that he had contemplated, from up there,

the human life

And said we are

a sea of little fires

The world is that, revealed:

a bunch of people,

a sea of little fires,

There are never two of the same fire

Each person shines with self light, amongst the others

There's big fires and little fires and fires of all colors

There's people of serene fire, that doesn't even feel the wind,

and there's people of crazy fire, that fills the air with sparks,

Some fires, silly fires, don't iluminate or burn

But others...

others burn life with so much desire

that you cannot look them without blinking,

and who approaches ignites.

I would like you to talk, Eduardo,

of Latin America, how do you see it today and how you see the world today

Well, its a little complicated

answer a question that covers Latin America and moreover the world

I'm glad that you're not going to ask about Jupiter, Mars, the Moon...

I guess that on our region we're living a very interesting period, beautiful

very creative, very fertile

Difficult to understand, sometimes,

mainly when you look from outside and from above

Things that we truly understand

the things that we can understand with the reason and feel with the heart,

are the things we're capable of looking

from inside and from below

If we look from above, with the charactheristic arrogancy of our democracy teachers

from United States or from Europe

and if beyound looking from above, we look from outside, we don't understand anything

And don't understand anything for a reason, for a very important reason:

It's that we're the region of the world that, probably, its the most diverse of all

It's the home of the human diversities

And this, that for me is a virtue, seen from outside and above is considered a serious defect

Why? Because if you don't fit in the model from above and outside

believe that is democracy, so here there's no democracy

And the truth that proves that here democracy exists

is that this is a kingdom of the contradiction and the diversity

where its mixed and sometimes disagree, all the colors, the smells and the pains of the world

There was a north-american poet, a woman, that died some years ago

she was called Muriel Rukeyser

She said a sentence, that for me, always seemed splendid to me, she said:

"Yes, Yes fine, this thing that the world is made of atoms...

the world is not made of atoms, the world is made of stories", she said

I believe that yes, the world must be made of stories

because its the stories that we tell, that we listen, recriate, multiply

its the stories that permits to transform, the past in present

And, also, permits to transform the distant into near

what's distant into something close, possible and visible

How was these losses and how did you face them and overcame them or not?

The deaths?

Losses in general

Losses?

The losses of things, I confess that never really matered to me

But the losses of people yes, they hurted

and, in some cases, lefted a little hole very difficult to fill

But, well, this world is built like this

its a fabric of encounters and missing

of losses and gains

and the best of my days is the one I didn't live yet

each loss corresponds to an encounter that I still didn't have

And luckily the reality is generous and doesn't fail on this

Indeed I write to celebrate it

and celebrating it I denounce everything that prevents us from recognizing

on others and ouselves

the multiple colors of the terrestrial rainbow

We are much more than what people tell us we are

The fear threatens

if you love, you'll have Aids

if you smoke, you'll have cancer

if you breath, you'll have contamination

if you drink, you'll have accidents

if you eat, you'll have cholesterol

if you speak, you'll have unemployment

if walks, you'll have violence

if thinks, you'll have anguish

if you doubt, you'll have crazyness

if you fell, you'll have solitude

One of the most beautiful indigenous stories from Latin America

tells that the maya's gods tried lots of times to create the woman and the men

because they were very bored, the gods, and they wanted to have someone to talk to

So, they made us from lots of different ways and failled, it was a disaster

until they found a way that we were what we were, made of corn

The maia gods made us from corn and that's why we have all the colors, like the corn

not the transgenic corn nor the quimic that is being sold to us right now

But, before they get to the corn, the maias god tried, for instance, to make the woman and men of wood

and they were just perfect, but they had a grave inconvenience: they didn't breath

and as they didn't breath, they didn't have words to say

because from the mouth nothing was coming out

and I always tought: if they didn't breath, they also didn't have dismay

To have breath, you must have discouragement

In order to raise you have to know how to fall

in order to gain you have to know to lose

and we have to know that life is like this, and that you fall and rise lots of times

and that some people falls and never raise again, usually the most sensible

the easiest to get hurt, the people that most pain feels to live

the most sensible people are the most vulnerable

And in exchange, these motherfuckers

dedicate themselfs to torment the humanity, live very long lifes, they never die

because they don't have a gland, that actually is very rare

that its called consciousness

and its what torments us through the nights

Sleeping, saw us

Helena had dreamed that we're in a queue

a long queue in an airport, like any other airport

and each passanger was bringing under their arms, the pillow where they had slept the night before

and the pillows were passing, one after the other, through a machine

that read the dreams on the pillows

It was a machine detector of dangerous dreams

for the public order

The XX century, that was born announcing peace and justice, died bathed in blood

and left a world much more unfair than the one it had encountered

The XXI century, that also was born announcing peace and justice

is following the steps of the last century

On my childhood, I was convinced

that everything that was lost on Earth, would go to the moon

however, the astronauts didn't found on the Moon

dangerous dreams, or betrayed promisses, or shattered hopes.

If they're not on the Moon, where are they?

Would it be that they got lost on Earth?

Would it be that they hide on Earth?

And are waiting, waiting for us?

I would like you to talk a little bit about Montevidéu

About how it is to live in Montevideu and about how you see Uruguai

Montevideu is a city that I choose

besides is the city where I was born

but one is not condemned to choose the city where he was born

and I choose it because its a breathable and possible to walk

ie, its still possible to breath and walk on the city of Montevideu

Its two hard luxuries to find in today's world

and since I was little the teacher would tell me

breath, Eduardito, its important!

And you walk a lot?

Yes, I do, I'm very much a walker

Actually, I walk a lot the life, I really like to walk

And you have a walking routine?

No, what I like is to walk on the border of this that we call sea

but in fact is kinda river/sea

on the border of the water, I walk for hours

and this way I save a fortune in psicanalyse

I would like you to talk a little bit about something

that I know its very important for you,

the friendship

yes, friendship is a form of love

And like I was saying before, I think it exerts on the base of honesty

because the other friendship, the one of "I love you very much" and "how beautiful you are"

its not the true friendship

Friends, when they're true friends, say what has to be said

and this concerns people and the colective processes too

So, friendship is sometimes difficult

on this base, because it crosses complicated periods

But, when we love for real, on love, on friendship, you love the lights and the shadows

of each person or each place

Wich you think it is, today, on this world, the role of literature, the role of art?

The truth is that is very difficult to give an answer that doesn't seem

pedantic or arrogant or that it doesn't seem that I attribute to the artists

a privilegied role in the world

Like if God kissed us on the cot and chose us to save the others

I don't believe on this at all

Don't believe in any type of aristocracy, either the talent one

specially when the aristocracy of talent is auto-elected

because its us, the literates, the artists in general

that in the human zoo habits the cage of peacocks

So we're continuously complimenting ourselves

for our beauty and extreme intelligence that we have.

And I disagree with this

I think that the exercise of solidariety, when trully practiced, on the every day life

is also an exercise of humility

that teaches you to recognize yourself on others

and to recognize the greatness hidden on the little things

which implies to denounce the fake greatness on the little big things

in a world that confuses greatness with little big

Not long ago, in an interview that was made with me in Madrid

a journalist told me:

"Reading your books I feel

that you have an eye on the microscope and the other on the telescope"

and I thought it was a good definition of my intentions

of what I would like to be writing

be capable to look what is not looked, but deserves to be looked

the little, the minuscule things of the anonymous people

the people that the intellectuals usually despise

this micro-world where I believe feeds for real the greatness of the universe

and at the same time be capable of contemplate the universe

through the keyhole, ie, from the small things being capable of looking the big ones

to the great misteries of life

the mistery of the human pain

but also the mistery

of the human persistency on this mania, sometimes inexplicable

to fight for a world that is everyone's house and not the house of few

and the hell of the majority

and also other things

the capacity of beauty

of the most simple people, sometimes from the most plain people

that has an unusual capacity of loveliness

that, sometimes, its manifested on a song, on a graffiti, in a silly conversation

the one that kids have

what happens is that us, the adults, get occupied transforming them in ourselves

and then we destroy their lifes

but, we have to see what's a kid, no?

are all pagan...

Not long ago, I suffered a tragedy, my fellow died

Morgan, my dog, my companion of walking

that accompanied me also writting

because, when I was losing my hand, I was writing for 18 hours already

with his leg told me: "Lets go, lets go,

life doesn't finish here, on books, come, lets walk together"

and then we went the both of us

and he died

and I had been feeling a very bad music on my soul

and, really, talking about losses, the loss of Morgan was very important for me

it ripped a piece of my heart

and well, I was very sad

and I went for a walk here, on the neighbourhood

and it was early, early morning, I couldn't sleep, so I got dressed, and went to walk

and I stumbled a little girl, she must had two years, no more than two.

that came playing on the opposite direction

and she was greeting the grass, the little grass, the little plants

"good morning, little grass", she said:"good morning little grass"

ie, on this age, we're all pagans,

and, at this age, we're all poets

later the world occupies itself to belittle our souls

that's what we call growing, developing

I freed myself from the hug, go out on the street

and on the sky, already clearing, it draws, finite, the Moon

the Moon has two nights of age

me, one.

Is there still space for utopy in today's world?

Yes, in the sense that gave her Fernando Birri

in a sentence that, unfairly, its atributed to me

In one of my books I quoted his sentence, saying that it was his

but people atributed to me, poor Fernando, but its his

We were togheter at the Cartagena das Índias, a beautiful coast colombian city

and we did a lecture together on the university

a little on the style of the nephews of Donald Duck

each one started a sentence that the other finished

and at the end, one of the students rise up and asked him, not me

"What's the pourpose of utopia?"

and he answered the best way

I never heard a better answer

he said that he asked himself this question every day

what's the pourpose of utopia? Assuming utopy serves for something...

He said: "See, utopy its on the horizon

and if its on the horizon I'll never reach it

because, if I walk ten steps, utopy is going to walk ten steps

and if I walk twenty steps, utopy is going to put itself twenty steps further

in other words I know that I'll never, ever, reach it

what's the pourpose?

For that, to walk"

Eduardo Galeno was born on Uruguay in 1940

On childhood wanted to be a football player

In 1971 published "The Open Veins of Latin America"

Currently he walks every day, while writting Helena's dreams