Memory of Fire: Vol 2-Faces &

Galeano, a Uruguayan journalist and novelist, continues his imaginative history of the Americas. In this second volume of his Memory of Fire trilogy, he gives us crucial moments of the 18th and 19th centuries: the clash between European and native cultures, the tribulations of slavery and the struggle for freedom, and the rise of the United States. His kaleidoscopic history, blending fact and fiction in short, telling narratives, recounts the actions of explorers, pirates, clergy and monarchs as they play out their fates in the New World. The author's distinctly Latin view, and his insistence on seeing the Americas whole, make this a fresh, jolting, edifying work for readers unfamiliar with the Latin American past. (February 12)