Biography: Mario Benedetti | Uruguayan writer, was a leading poet.

(Passage of the bulls, 1920 - Montevideo, 2009) Uruguayan writer. Mario Benedetti was a leading poet, novelist, playwright, short-story writer and critic, and, along with Juan Carlos Onetti, the most relevant figure of the Uruguayan literature of the second half of the 20th century and one of the great names of the Boom in Latin American literature. Grower of all genres, his work is so prolific as popular; his novels such as truce it (1960) and thank you for the fire (1965) were adapted for the big screen, and different singers helped spread his poetry musicando his verses.

Mario Benedetti

Mario Benedetti worked in multiple trades before 1945, year in which started its activity of journalist in The morning, El Diario, Popular Tribune and the weekly March, among others. In the work of Mario Benedetti may differ at least two periods marked by their vital circumstances, as well as the social and political changes of Uruguay and the rest of Latin America. In the first, Benedetti developed a realistic literature of scarce formal experimentation, on the subject of public bureaucracy, to which he belonged, and the Bohemians spirit that animates it.

The great success of his poetic and narrative, books from the verses of poems of office (1956) to tales about the civil service life of Montevideans (1959), was due to the recognition of readers in the social portrait and criticism, largely from ethical in nature, the writer asked. This attitude has resulted in an acid and controversial essay: the country of the tail of straw (1960), and its literary consolidation in two important novels: truce (1960), loving story of tragic end between two clerks, and thank you for the fire (1965), which is a critique of the wider national society, with the denunciation of corruption of journalism as the apparatus of power.

In the second period of this author, his works echoed the anguish and the hope of broad social sectors find Socialist outputs to a Latin America subjugated by military repression. For more than ten years, Mario Benedetti lived in Cuba, Peru and Spain as a result of this repression. Their literature became formally bolder. He wrote a novel in verse, the birthday of John Angel (1971), as well as fantastic tales of death and other surprises (1968). It dealt with the issue of the exile in the spring with a broken corner (1982) novel and was based on his childhood and youth for the autobiographical novel the coffee dregs (1993).

In his poetry were also reflected the political and existential circumstances of Uruguayan exile and return home: the House and the brick (1977), winds of exile (1982), geographies (1984) and the solitude of Babel (1991). In theatre, Mario Benedetti denounced the institution of torture with Pedro and the captain (1979), and in the trial said various aspects of the contemporary literature in books as a critical accomplice (1988). He reflected on cultural and political issues in the desexilio and other guesses (1984), work that picks up his journalistic work in Madrid.

Also in those years, he collected their numerous short stories, rearranging them, in the complete stories (1986) collection, which would be expanded in 1994. Next to the solidity of its literary structure, you must stand out as essential feature of Benedetti accounts the presence of an impalpable element, not formulated explicitly, but which acquires the character of a powerful irradiation of telluric waves which crosses the protagonists of their stories, to be transmitted by themselves (almost without intervention of the author in his texts (, arguably) directly to the reader. The predilection for this genre and the expertise that showed in it relates to Mario Benedetti with the great authors of the Boom in Latin American literature, and especially with the masters of the short story: Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar.

In 1997 he published the novel scaffolds, markedly autobiographical sign, which realizes the impressions that a Uruguayan writer feels when, after many years of exile, returns to his country. In 1998 he returned to poetry with life, the parentheses, and in May of the following year won the 8th Reina Sofía Iberoamerican poetry. In 1999 he published the seventh one of his books of stories, time mailbox, composed of thirty texts. That same year saw the light its corner of haikus, clear example of his mastery of this Japanese poetic genre of minimalistic sign, after contact with him years ago thanks to Cortázar.

In March 2001 he received the José Martí Iberoamerican Prize in recognition of all his work; that same year he published the world when I breathe (poems) and two years later presented a new book of short stories: the future of my past (2003). The following year he published memory and hope, a collection of poems, reflections and photographs which summarize the musings of the author on the youth. Also in 2004 the book of poems self-defense was published in Argentina.

That same year was invested doctor honoris causa, by the University of the Republic of Uruguay; during the inauguration ceremony received a calurosisimo tribute of his countrymen. In 2005 he was awarded the Menéndez Pelayo international prize. His last works were the collections of poems songs of which does not sing (2006) and witness of one's self (2008), the essay living purposely (2007) and the drama output journey (2008).

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas