The directory «Plots»

Benedetti Mario Orlando Hamlet Hardy Brenno Farrugia
(1920—2009)

Mario Benedetti was an Uruguayan journalist, novelist and poet. He was not well known in the English-speaking world, but in the Spanish-speaking world he was considered one of Latin America's most important 20th-century writers.

Benedetti was born in Paso de los Toros in the department of Tacuarembó in a family of Italian descent. In 1946 he married Luz López Alegre.

From 1973 to 1985, when a military dictatorship ruled Uruguay, Benedetti lived in exile in Buenos Aires, Lima, Havana, and Spain. Following the restoration of democracy, he divided his time between Montevideo and Madrid. He has been granted Honoris Causa doctorates by the Universidad de la República, Uruguay, the Universidad de Alicante, Spain, and the Universidad de Valladolid, Spain. In 1986 he was awarded Laureate Of The International Botev Prize. On June 7, 2005, he was named the recipient of the Premio Menéndez y Pelayo. His poetry was also used in the 1992 Argentine movie The Dark Side of the Heart (El lado oscuro del corazón) in which he read some of his poems in German.

In 2006, Mario Benedetti signed a petition in support of the independence of Puerto Rico from the United States of America.

He died in Montevideo on 17 May 2009. He had suffered from respiratory and intestinal problems for more than a year.

For his poetry and novels Benedetti had won numerous international awards. The Truce, first published in 1960, has since been translated into 19 languages and made into two motion pictures.

Uruguay, 2010, Mario Benedetti