>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
[ Silence ]
>> Marie has published four
real books and one collection.
Her first book which was
published in 2001 was
"American Chica" a memoir of
her life with her parents,
her American mother
and Peruvian father.
Her next book was a
novel, "Cellophane",
for which I feel a
particular devotion,
since it's dedicated to me.
Then another novel, "Lima Nights",
which just recently incidentally
has been translated into Spanish
and has been published
by a small house in Peru,
which is in itself very exciting
because Peruvian book publishing
is a very small undertaking.
And she is now and is
here today to talk to you
about her biography
of Simon Bolivar.
And one of the things that I
hope you will learn as you--
as we get through the afternoon
is how to pronounce his name.
For a long time before I met Marie,
I thought he was Simon de Bolivar.
And North Americanos in
the exquisite ignorance
of all things Latin America
pronounced them almost anything
except Simon Bolivar, in particular.
Well, it's Simon Bolivar.
I have been watching
this book as it began
as a research project
several years ago
and I was perhaps a bit less
closely involved with its research
and writing than I had been
with some of her previous work.
And I did it read it
half way through
and finished and then another time.
I have to tell you that I felt
about Bolivar when I first read it
as I felt about when I read the
first chapter of Cellophane.
I simply could not believe
that my wife had written this.
It was that good.
I'm obviously biased, but I think
that you're about to be talked
to by the author of the best
book of the year in this country,
an opinion that is only slightly
shaped by personal feelings.
It's an absolutely
magnificent book and she talks
about it with great passion.
It is the latest installment
in her ongoing effort
to help North Americans understand
her native Latin America, Marie.
[ Applause ]
>> Marie Arana: Thank
you very much, John.
Wow, was that an unusual
ingrown sort of thing,
right being introduced
by your husband
and darling why don't you
say all those nice things
to me across the dinner table?
[laughter] Very nice, thank you.
I also want to than the Library
of Congress, which is the place
where I did all of my research
for this book and the place
to which I've come to work in the
librarian's office and the office
of Dr. James Billington, which is
in itself a tremendous
honor and a privilege.
And I want to thank all of you
for coming out here tonight
and braving the tempests
and the rain.
I mean you know I've just
written a book about a man who,
who braved this sort
of thing and then some.
I mean there are stories, of
course, of Bolivar's armies wading
through waist high water after
inundations of storms like this.
So, I think it's fitting
in a way for us
to be doing something
difficult today.
So, I thank you for doing something
difficult with me in the rain today
at this wonderful festival.
I wrote this book as John says
because this is a campaign of mine,
a personal Bolivarian campaign
you can call it in which I'd
like to explain who Latin Americans
are and in the process explain
who Hispanic Americans
are because one comes
from the other naturally
through history.
And in the course of that
explanation I've gone
from a memoir to two novels.
One family saga, a very short
sharp stark book about love
between races and now Bolivar.
You know it's almost-- they all, it
doesn't make sense that you would go
from memoir to novel,
to novel to biography,
but it to me it makes
quintessential sense because it is,
everyone is a brick to explain
something more about the identity
and the character of
Latin American people.
Now Bolivar's life is one of
histories most dramatic canvases.
It is a colossal narrative really,
filled with adventure and romance
and victory and defeat
driven by his vision
of a free united South America.
One man, think about this; one man
single handedly conceived, organized
and led the liberation of a
vast portion of the continent,
a region that has suffered under
Spain's colonial boot for 300 years.
Some of his campaigns
were disastrous,
far more were victorious.
His wars of independence took 14
years, freed a land mass the size
of modern Europe and
led to the establishment
of no less than six republics.
In the course of a devastating
violence he was beaten often
and exiled twice, but he always came
back more fierce after his failures.
"The art of victory" he
said, "is learned in defeat."
And his life story is
a testimony to that.
It's a splendid tale of reversals,
of David besting Goliath,
of resounding military feats and
unimaginable physical endurance.
It was during his second exile
when he was spit of Venezuela
after liberating Caracas and
he had been slammed back even
after he had been called
the liberator.
He had been slammed back by Spain's
wild marauding legions of hell
that Bolivar decided that the
only way he was going to be able
to achieve his goals was
to widen the revolution
and to engage all of the races.
For as much as he tried he was
never able to secure any help
from the United States of America,
from the newly formed United States
of America or official
England or Republican France.
Instead he turned to the blacks,
to the Indians and the Mullatoes
and the Mestizos of
Venezuela and Columbia.
And he got help from the shipping
merchants who were floating
around the Caribbean who
were trying to make money
and the newly freed blacks
of Haiti and from the Pirates
of the Caribbean and from
the mixed race cowboys
of bleak Venezuelan plains.
And he got from invalids in
hospitals and from boy soldiers
who were as young as 12 years old.
And to populate his armies he
liberated slaves a full half century
before the Emancipation
Proclamation.
Bolivar came to understand with
a higher moral instinct perhaps
than George Washington or Thomas
Jefferson that it doesn't make sense
to pursue a war of independence of
you don't first free your slaves.
Now some reviewers have
said and it makes me happy
that my book reads like a novel.
It-- if it does it's not
because of my vivid imagination.
I found all the color that I
needed in the history itself
in the primary documents
in Bolivar's letters.
There are more than 2500 books about
Bolivar in the Library of Congress.
Bolivar's writing is brisk, lively,
full of opinion and
passion and drama.
He wrote on the battlefield.
He wrote on the fly.
He wrote on long slogging
expeditions and he liked
to write, especially in ballrooms.
He loved to dance and he said,
"I think best on my feet."
And he would dance with the
prettiest women in the room
and then he'd dash off to the
back and he would dictate three,
four, five letters at a time.
And he said, "A lot of people need
solitude to do their best thinking.
I think best while I'm dancing."
Remarkable really, because his
language actually does dance a bit.
When his words weren't enough
I turned the chronicles
of his contemporaries and one
of the most vibrant accounts
that I've found, and I found this at
the Library of Congress was a story
that was told by a painter
who painted probably the most
famous portraits of Bolivar.
His name was Jose Maria Espinosa
and he was a very young soldier
when he went off with Bolivar.
And he took along his paper and
his pen and drew Bolivar and all--
at all points but he was
actually also fighting this war.
And he tells a story of
standing on the road from--
to Boyaca to Bogota and the
Republican forces had just streamed
over the most impossible
point in the Andes,
come down over the mountains
after an extraordinary feat really
of going up to 15,000 feet high
into the cold of the mountain tops
and impassible, thought to
be impassible mountaintops
and they had come down to
fight the battle of Boyaca.
And these-- this painter and his
friends are standing on the roadside
and they see a man galloping
down the road towards Bogota.
And I think oh, this is one of
those Spaniards scared them to death
because the forces had come
down over the mountains.
Scared out of their wits were
flying the [inaudible] himself put
on a greasy poncho and a hat so
that he would look like a peasant
and slunk off into the night.
And down the road comes
this man who the soldiers,
the Republican soldiers that are
standing there think this must be a
Spaniard and so they go
running out and they put
up their lamps and they say halt.
A man does not halt.
He keeps on writing.
He is-- his poncho, his
cape rather, not a poncho,
his cape is flying in the wind.
He is bare-chested.
His coat is raggedy.
His hair is long.
It's flying in the wind.
He's got a beard days long.
He is skinny and retched looking but
he's writing and he's not stopping.
And the men raised the lances again
and the man on the horse stops
for a second and he
says, "Soya it's me.
[foreign language language]"
which means,
don't be a dumb son of a bitch.
Now, how can you get better than
that for historical research?
That became the first scene in my
book and there were plenty of scenes
like that in the original
and the primary documents.
Bolivar was 36 years old when
he fought the battle of Boyaca.
And although he would die of
tuberculosis 11 years later
and many dozens of battles later,
he seemed at that moment, at 36,
vibrant and strong and filled
with a boundless energy.
For all of his physical slightness,
and he was only five foot six
and 130 pounds, there was an
undeniable intensity to the man.
His eyes were piercing black.
His gaze was unsettling.
His forehead was deeply
lined, even as a young man.
His cheekbones were high, carved.
His teeth were perfect and white
and his smile was surprising
and radiant.
He didn't smoke.
He didn't drink.
He bathed twice, sometimes
three times a day.
Official portraits show rather
an unimposing man, meager chest,
very thin legs, hands are small
and as beautiful as a woman's.
But when Bolivar entered a
room his power was palpable.
When he spoke his voice
was galvanizing.
He had a charisma that
seemed to dwarf other men.
He enjoyed good cuisine
but he could stand days,
even weeks of punishing starvation.
And he spent backbreaking hours
in campaigns that took him
from one colony to another right
down the land mass of Latin America.
By the end he had traveled 75,000
miles on horseback or muleback
and I want you to think
about that for a moment.
That's like going from the tip of
Alaska to the tip of Argentina,
Tierra del Fuego and
back and back and back
and back five times on horseback.
His stamina in the saddle
was absolutely legendary
and even the llaneros, who were
the roughriders of Venezuela,
they were toughest horseman in
the whole continent called him
with all admiration, iron ass.
[laughter] But as I say,
he was equally comfortable
in a ballroom or at the opera.
He was superb dancer, a spirited
conversationalist, a cultivated man
of the enlightenment who read
widely and could quote Russo
or Julius Caesar in
their own languages.
He was a widower by the time he was
19 years old and a sworn bachelor.
He said, "I will never marry again."
However, he was also an
insatiable womanizer.
Every time he rode in having
liberated a town or a province
or a village or a city,
young girls in white
with blue ribbons would come
running out to meet him.
And he would choose from one
or another to actually dance
and spend the evening with and
there were always romances afoot.
People were always pushing
their daughters to Bolivar.
He was a very rich man.
He had been when he started at least
and he was a very powerful man,
a very extraordinarily
influential man.
So, he was always presented with
all of these lovely young women.
He had 35 mistresses
that we can count
or that are actually
recorded in the books.
The one wonderful, Papitta
[inaudible] who followed him
across the Caribbean here and there
and then they would have
these extraordinary meetings
of the love trysts in which,
in which Bolivar would stop all
the boats and say I'm stopping here
and I'm going to see
Papitta and the soldiers
and the generals or
the admirals, what?
They learned to live with that.
Then there was, of course,
the famous Manuela Saenz
who saved him many times from
assassination attempts later
on when his reputation became--
he had to become dictator
in several countries
and his assassination
attempts were tried
and Manuela Saenz really was
the one who saved his life.
There are scenes in the book
in which she dresses him
in her galoshes because his boots
have been sent out to be cleaned
and he has to escape through the
window in her galoshes to hide
from the potential assassins.
By the time Bolivar was galloping
toward Boyaca in that scene
that I just described, his name
was already known around the world.
In Washington John Quincy
Adams and James Monroe agonized
over whether a fledgling
republic of the United States
in which a slave trade was booming
should support a patriot army whose
ranks were populated
by liberated slaves.
Think about that.
The largest gross national
product in the United States
at that time was slavery.
Cotton, tobacco, everything
depended on slavery.
The thought that a liberator
would take freed slaves
and prosecute a war of independence
was a [inaudible] to those
in Washington and so he
got no help from them.
In London he got no
help from the officials.
But of work veterans of the
Napoleonic wars signed on to fight
for Bolivar's cause and it was from
their incredible scenes of these men
who dressed up in London
finery with their [inaudible]
and their fancy hats with
feathers and they show up of course
in the tropics and the jungle
and everybody is fighting a
war, barefoot with lances.
And he comes these
lumbering men with all
of these you know fancy uniforms.
They didn't have them for long.
They didn't have them for long.
Those British and the Irish
soldiers who fought alongside
of Bolivar really distinguished
themselves in bravery
and they've learned to fight if
need be with lances and barefoot.
There would be a lot of--
there would be much horrifying
violence before Spain was thrust
from South American shores.
Whole towns would be raised.
Populations would be annihilated
in a degree of truculence
that had been unknown in
the Americas of those times.
In the battlefields of Venezuela
alone there were more dead
than in the North American
Revolution and Civil War combined.
At the end of that chastening
war one man would be credited
with conceiving, organizing
and leading the liberations
of those six nations; a population
that's one and half times
that of North America at the time.
And the odds against which you
fought a formidable established
world power vast areas of untracked
wilderness, the splintered loyalties
of many, many races would have
proved daunting for the best
of generals with strong
armies at his command.
But Bolivar had never
been a soldier.
He had no formal military training
yet with little more than will
and a genius for leadership
he freed much
of the Spanish American
continent and laid out his dream
for a unified Latin America.
He wanted one Latin America,
one nation, a solid country
that would serve at that
point as a bull work
against what he felt was a
hugely growing United States
and a very powerful,
still threatening Europe.
Of course, he never won his dream.
He was an astonishing man and
yet a highly imperfect man.
He could be impulsive, headstrong,
filled with contradictions.
He spoke eloquently about
justice, but he wasn't always able
to meet it out in the chaos of war.
His romantic life had a way of
spilling over into the public realm.
His mistresses often got him
into trouble with his generals.
He had trouble accepting criticism.
He had no patience
for disagreements.
He was totally incapable of
losing at a game of cards.
It's hardly surprising that over the
years Latin Americans have learned
to accept human imperfections
in their leaders.
Bolivar taught them how.
You wonder why in Peru, the
country where I was born,
a President brings his illegitimate
children out to the balcony
without a grieving, sad-looking
wife beside; human imperfections,
we know about them in our
leaders in Latin America.
As years passed he became known
as the George Washington
of South America.
This pleased him very much
and General Lafayette
actually gave him that moniker.
There were good reasons why.
Both he and Washington came
from rich influential families,
both were defenders of Freedom, both
were heroic in war but apprehensive
about marshalling the peace.
Both resisted efforts
to make them kings.
Bolivar was very antimonarchical
and it's strange
because I still meet today people
who say, oh he's the one who wanted
to be king of Latin America; not so.
And he, both he and George
Washington claimed to want to return
to private lives but were called
instead to shape governments
and both were accused
of undue ambition.
And there the similarities end,
because Bolivar's military
action lasted more
than twice as long as Washington's.
The territory he covered was
almost seven times as large
and spanned astonishing adversity
from crocodile infested jungles
to the snow-capped
reaches of the Andes.
Moreover, unlike Washington's war
Bolivar's could not have been fought
without the aid of
black and Indian troops.
His success in rallying
all the races
to his side was really the turning
point for the wars of independence.
It's fair to say
that he simultaneously fought both
the revolution and the Civil War.
But perhaps what distinguishes
them most I feel is
in their written works.
In Washington's work you see a
measured, a gust dignified man.
The product of a cautious
and a liberate mind.
Bolivar's speeches on the
other hand were firey,
passionate, short, sharp.
They represent to my mind some
of the greatest writing
in Latin America.
Although much of this was
produced in haste in ballrooms
and on the fly in-- on the
battlefield and on the run,
the pros is lyrical and stately,
clever and historically grounded,
electric yet deeply wise.
It's no exaggeration to say
that Bolivar's revolution
changed not only South America,
but the Spanish language.
The old dusty Castilian,
that very ornate,
baroque Castilian of its time.
In his voice and pen became
something else entirely,
urgent and vibrant and young.
Unlike Washington's glory, Bolivar's
did not last into the brave.
In time, the politics
in his countries grew evermore
[inaudible] His detractors became
evermore vehement when the
assassination attempts began.
Eventually he came to believe
that Latin America could--
was really not ready for
a democratic government.
We felt they had been made abject.
They had been made ignorant,
suspicious because they had
been systematically deprived
of that experience by Spain's
colonial rule for 300 years.
What they needed in his eyes was a
strong hand and a strict executive.
He began making unilateral
decisions.
He installed a dictator
in Venezuela to vote
into the Bolivian constitution,
a President for life.
Well you can imagine these things
did not sit well with generals
who wanted to have a piece of the
action territory to themselves
and land to rule of their own.
By the time he was 41 his wisdom
began to be doubted by every--
by all the functionaries,
many functionaries in the--
in every republic that he liberated.
His deputies became jealous and
wary of his extraordinary power.
They called it the
magic of his prestige,
which by the way still
lives on today.
You don't find people
running through the streets
of Washington yelling, George
Washington, George Washington.
You don't find people
running through the streets
of London yelling,
Cromwell, Cromwell.
But in the streets of
South America, Venezuela
or Columbia you do
find people running
through the streets yelling Bolivar.
[inaudible] Chavez
did help with that.
Trumped at last by all the
divisions in his second,
third command he had no choice
but to renounce command.
His 47th and final year ended
in poverty, illness and exile.
He had come from one of the
richest families of Venezuela
that had 12 houses in Caracas,
mines of copper, fields of indigo,
fields of sugar and he
had reduced his wealth
to nothing for the revolution.
He died, in fact, entirely
penniless.
The doctor that cared for him until
the end and did his autopsy had
to go down the street to borrow
a shirt in which to bury Bolivar.
Well, of course we know what
the end of the story is.
Twelve years later he was brought
back from Santa Marta where he died.
He had died forbidden to come
back to Venezuela on his way
out of Columbia totally despised
for all that he had accomplished,
a most amazing ingratitude.
And, of course, twelve years
later they wanted him back.
The wanted his body back in
the-- in Caracas, the cathedral.
They left his heart in an urn
because Columbia didn't
want to take his heart away.
And he became the most as we say,
[foreign language spoken]
there's no English word for it,
emmarbled person in
all of Latin America.
And those marble statutes
are all over.
You can find them here
in Washington, the iron,
wonderful bronze statues.
You can find them in New York.
It is indeed a most amazing,
and I hope you agree with me,
quite a compelling American story.
Thank you so much for listening.
[ Applause ]
Thank you.
We have a little time for questions.
I'd love to take your questions.
We have a few minutes.
>> I thoroughly enjoyed
reading Bolivar.
You have beautifully
dramatized history.
>> Marie Arana: Thank you.
>> Now here are the
history questions.
What in your opinion is the
single most important reason
that George Washington succeeded in
having the United States of America
when a charismatic figure
like Bolivar failed?
>> Marie Arana: Well, with
Bolivar he never had the,
the circle that surrounded
George Washington,
that extraordinary circle of
men of Madison and Hamilton
and Bolivar never had that.
He had, he had military men.
He had rescue really out of nowhere
as young soldiers brought them
up the ranks and at the 11th
hour they were not wise.
They were not necessarily helpful
in creating the unified
vision that he had.
The-- there was no, no team of
rivals and when it descended
into chaos Bolivar totally
understood why in a sense.
It was because the Latin
Americans had never been given
any responsibility.
People don't realize, this is
a very fundamental difference
between the North American and
the South American experience.
South Americans under the
colonial rule were given absolutely
no responsibility.
You could not grow a plum
tree to sell the plums.
You could not go down the
shaft to mine your own copper
if you were living over copper.
You could not go from one colony
to another without risking arrest.
You could not publish anything.
You could not read anything.
It was a tremendously
controlled environment
and Bolivar thought completely
an infantilized environment.
And Latin Americans
did not learn until,
well when independence
was given it was given--
it really in his eyes to children
who didn't know how to manage it.
And it has taken-- you know
now you see in a way a lot
of very prophetic things
that Bolivar said
at the time coming to pass.
He wrote some remarkable things.
He saw countries, whole countries
being exactly what they are today.
He saw Chili as it is today,
an engine of productivity.
He saw Panama as having
a canal which, of course,
is way before it happened.
But he felt that-- and it was true
that there was just no
organized wisdom to help him.
Thank you for the question.
>> I have a question
with the inspiration
for the South American
revolutions I understand one
of the crucial things
was not from America,
it was from a French revolution.
Now would that have had an
affect on how they viewed things?
And the second thing I was thinking
about is what his relationship
with Ohiggins and San Martin?
>> Marie Arana: Thank you.
Well, the French revolution,
you know basically Napoleon
in a way handed independence to
Latin America by invading Spain.
At the time you know you can
imagine it wasn't social media time.
There was no quick communications.
At the time there was the
sleepy colony in Venezuela.
In Caracas they did not learn that
Napoleon had invaded Spain and taken
over Spain until six months after
the fact and they only knew it
because somebody read the
shipping news that had been sent
over from the Dominican--
of it's time what is now
the Dominican Republic,
had sent over you know
some old English newspapers
that were five months old.
And somebody was looking at the
shipping news and it said something
about oh, we can't go
to those ports anymore
because its been taken
over by Napoleon.
This is how Venezuela learned that
it no longer had a colonial master.
The French, the French
had a great deal to do.
In fact, Napoleon had
a great deal to do
with getting the independence
movement started
because it was an opportunity
you know extremism trouble,
this is a time to revolt.
Actually the only-- France
did not help at all except
for that, for invading Spain.
The one nation, the one
President, the one leader
who actually helped Bolivar
was the President of Haiti.
And now today you know you go to
Haiti everybody knows Bolivar's name
because Haiti feels
and rightfully so,
that really helped make
Latin America independent.
It was Alexander [inaudible]
who during one of the--
it was the second exile of Bolivar.
Alexander [inaudible]
said I will help you.
I will introduce you
to you know whoever.
The shipping merchants,
the Caribbean,
people with boats I will help you,
but you have to promise
me one thing.
And Bolivar said, what is that?
I need your help.
What is that?
And [inaudible] said you have
to the moment you step foot
on Venezuela again, you
have to free the slaves.
Bolivar actually knew that.
It was kind of confirmation of
what he had already learned.
He had already been spit out
of Venezuela twice and he knew
that he couldn't go forward
without the help of the racists.
But it was Haiti, the only Haiti
who helped him at that point.
Over here.
>> My mom was born in Peru and she
and I watched this documentary
together called, "Girl Rising."
And one of the stories is about a
Peruvian girl named Senna who grew
up in one of the mining towns and
I saw that it was written by you.
And I was wondering how important
you think it is for not only adults
but also for youth to learn about
the Latin American experience
and what it's like to grow
up in those countries?
>> Marie Arana: What
it's like to grow up now?
>> Yeah.
>> Maria Arana: So, yeah.
Oh, thank you so much
for that question.
She is referring-- a
wonderful question.
Thank you.
She is referring to a
movie that was released
in April called "Girl Rising."
And it was a movie that
I had the opportunity
to write part of the script for.
I wrote the part of the script
that was on a Peruvian girl.
The message of the
movie is, this is--
comes directly from social science.
If you educate girls you can
change the fabric of a community,
you can change the fabric of a
whole village, of a whole town
because it-- the science
proves this out.
When girls are educated the
household becomes healthier.
The disease goes down.
The crime goes down.
Everything, all tracks with
the education of girls.
This is the sort of thing
and you know thank you,
because in my mind
at least it connects.
It's something that
Bolivar knew immediately.
What he did when he went from town
to town he set up universities.
He set up educational centers.
He left and they all fell apart.
You know in the climate
that this movie encourages
and suggests, it's stick with it.
Stay there, educate the children and
you know concentrate on the girls,
especially in Latin America
where girls don't have
a whole lot of power.
Thank you for the question.
>> Thank you.
>> Marie Arana: I think--
are we running out of time?
We have time for one more question?
Please.
>> Thank you.
I just want to thank you
for your contribution.
I think it's important for us
to learn about Latin America.
I'm curious, you've talked
about Hispanic culture a lot,
mainly it sounds like it's a synonym
for the Spanish speaking
countries of Latin America.
Would you comment a little bit
on the Portuguese influence
or Brazil did you see
interaction with Bolivar
and the Portuguese
or the Brazilians?
>> Marie Arana: Thank you.
Brazil had a very different history.
What happened, of course,
is when Napoleon came in
and invaded the peninsula the
Portuguese royal family got
into boats, whole-- a
convoy of boats and sailed
to Brazil which was their colony.
So, they transplanted
the royalty to Brazil
and they felt they kept
the Portuguese power
and the Portuguese monarchy going.
It was a very different
story from the rest
of Spanish speaking America.
There really is a distinction
there and it would be wonderful
to actually have a book
that compared the difference
of the experiences between
Brazilian, quite different
and somehow much tidier experience,
at least in terms of revolution,
in terms of governance than
the rest of Latin America.
Thank you for that question
and thank you once again
for having me here
and for listening.
[applause] Pleasure, thank you.
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of the Library of Congress.
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