Mario Benedetti, Uruguayan writer Posted by Adir on Oct 27, 2008 in Spanish Culture
Mario Benedetti was born in Uruguay and is not well known in the English-speaking world, but he is considered one of Latin America’s most important living writers. He lived in Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba and Spain from 1973 to 1985, during a military dictatorship in Uruguay. Nowadays he divides his time between Montevideo and Madrid.
Benedetti has always been politically-oriented and, in January 2006, he joined other renowned figures such as Gabriel García Márquez, Ernesto Sábato, Thiago de Mello, Eduardo Galeano, Carlos Monsiváis, Pablo Armando Fernández, Jorge Enrique Adoum, Pablo Milanés, Luis Rafael Sánchez, Mayra Montero and Ana Lydia Vega, to demand sovereignty for Puerto Rico and join the Latin American and Caribbean Congress for the Independence of Puerto Rico, which approved a resolution favoring the island-nation’s right to assert its independence.
If you want to read some more about Mario Benedetti’s life and work, check out the following website.
Palabras Verdaderas
His profile on the Cervantes Virtual Library
(http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/bib_autor/mbenedetti/)
Some of his short stories, in Spanish
Nos vemos prontito!
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About the Author: Adir
English / Spanish teacher and translator for over 20 years. I have been blogging since 2007 and I am also a professional singer in my spare time.
Comments:
Luis Lazaro Tijerina:
This is a poem I wrote in memory of the poet, Mario Benedetti.
Talking With The Poet, Mario Benedetti,
After His Death
As we sit at this particular table
At your favorite cafe, where the kind waiter,
Miguel Braga serves us coffee or wine,
Depending on how we view love and kindness on this day…
You know, comrade, we have made a deal
Beyond Montevideo, beyond the grave where we all go.
Let us always talk or banter about the tango, mate,
Salsa, and the beautiful girls we saw in Paris,
Or the women who threw themselves at us in a drunken rage.
Was it poetry that attracted them to us,
Or was it simply we took them seriously beyond their lovely eyes,
Ample breasts and pouting lips?
So, now you have joined your wife, Luz, not in the clouds,
But in the beautiful earth of Uruguay…
Now, Don Mario, my dear Italian and Uruguayan friend,
It has come to be that the gentleness of nights is approaching…
Your death has not caused me grief for you will never die,
As long as there is poetry in the hearts of the young.
Luis Lazaro Tijerina, May 19th, 2009
Burlington, Vermont
sara molano:
Y te llego la muerte invisible que te estaba esperando pero tu seras inmortal pues ni te opacas ni moriras por un tiempo y jamas correras el riesgo del doble olvido. Ayer que partiste.La luna quedo congelada y faltaras en la proxima asamblea del futuro sin aviso. Mientras el senor molusco sera como el hombre que mira a otro hombre que se mira.Sin ti … Leer más no me sirve tan mansa esta esperanza, la rabia tan sumisa, tan debil tan humilde. Me sirve tu sendero companero. Tu ausencia me duele en el lado oscuro de mi corazon. Quien no ha parado de llorar por el ombligo a lagrima viva,llora a chorros, llorar como cocui o cocodrilo ya que mi fe es tu tactica y estartegia para que yo nunca me salve
Sara Molano
Martha Durán-Contreras:
Despertando la muerte
Escrito para Mario y Luz
por Martha Durán-Contreras
Santa Monica, California
Estárías dormida esperando
Que por los pasillos de tus sueños llegaría, entraría
Despierta que mis pasos callados me entregan a ti.
Sopla el viento, parpareas, y en tus labios susurro,
-Ya llegué. Ya llegue, Luz mía.
Una voz delgada dice -Apaga la luz del faro
que tu llegada me encandela.
-Es el crepúsculo de la muerte.
-Díle que se apague
Que ya llegaste, ya llegaste, Mario mío.
Martha Durán-Contreras:
Escribí está poesía a las dos horas de darme cuenta de la muerte de Benedetti