Biography
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.
He was a member of the 'Generation of 45', a Uruguayan intellectual and literary movement: Carlos Maggi, Manuel Flores Mora, Ángel Rama, Emir Rodríguez Monegal, Idea Vilariño, Carlos Real de Azúa, Carlos Martínez Moreno, Mario Arregui, Mauricio Muller, José Pedro Díaz, Amanda Berenguer, Tola Invernizzi, Ida Vitale, Líber Falco, Juan Cunha, Juan Carlos Onetti, among others.
He also wrote in the famous weekly Uruguayan newspaper Marcha.
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 was 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.
Before dying, he dictated to his personal secretary, Ariel Silva what would become his last poem :
- Mi vida ha sido como una farsa
- Mi arte ha consistido
- En que esta no se notara demasiado
- He sido como un levitador en la vejez
- El brillo marrón de los azulejos
- Jamás se separó de mi piel
- (Fragment)
A free translation into English of these few lines might be as follows:
- My life has been like a farce
- My art has consisted
- In this not being noticed too much
- I've been as a levitator in my old age
- The brown sheen of the tiles
- Never came off my skin
- (Fragment)
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