In Defense of the Word

"One writes out of a need to communicate and to commune with others, to denounce that which gives pain and to share that which gives happiness. One writes against one's solitude and against the solitude of others. One assumes that literature transmits knowledge and affects the behavior and language of those who read... One writes, in reality, for the people whose luck or misfortune one identifies with-- the hungry, the sleepless, the rebels, and the wretched of this earth-- and the majority of them are illiterate."~ Eduardo Galeano, 1978, translation by Bobbye Ortiz