Mario Benedetti

Mario Benedetti (full name Mario Orlando Hamlet Hardy Brenno Benedetti Farugia; born September 14, 1920 in Paso de los Toros, Tacuarembó, † 17 May, 2009 Montevideo) was a journalist, poet and writer from Uruguay.

Life

Benedetti was born as the son of Italian -born couple Brenno Benedetti and Matilde Farugia. When he was four years old, his parents moved with him to Montevideo. In 1928 he was enrolled and attended the Colegio Alemán first to 1933, then for one year the Liceo Miranda. In 1934 he entered the Escuela de Raumsólica Logosophy, a school that the philosopher Carlos Bernardo González Pecotche ( 1901-1963 ) had established inter alia, to promote his concept of Logosophy. In 1935, he began to learn on the Liceo Miranda for a high school, but had to stop his schooling for financial reasons in the same year. At 14 he began working for Will L. Smith, S. A. to work, a company for car spare parts. From 1938 to 1941 he lived mainly in Buenos Aires in Argentina.

In 1945 he settled again in Montevideo down and joined the editorial staff of the weekly Marcha, for which he worked until 1974, when the newspaper was closed under the military heavily influenced by government Juan María Bordaberry. Since 1954 he was head of the literature department in the newsroom.

In addition to his work for Marcha he headed since 1948, the literary journal Marginalia ( 1948-1949 ). In 1949 he became a member of the editorial board of the literary magazine Número, one of the most important of that time in his home country. In 1964 he became a theater critic and co-responsible for the literature side Al pie de las letras the daily La mañana. He wrote theater reviews for La Tribuna Popular, involved in the humorous magazine Peloduro with.

In Cuba Benedetti in 1966 was a member of the jury for the Culture Prize of the Casa de las Américas. He took in 1967 in the Second Latin American Writers' Congress. In the same year he became a member of the Governing Council of the Casa de las Américas, the literature research center he founded and ran until 1971 in Cuba.

In 1971 he became director of the Department of Hispanic literature in the humanities and natural sciences faculty ( FHC ) of the Universidad de la República in Montevideo. In the same year Benedetti, who already in the protest movement against the 1948 in Rio de Janeiro signed Inter-American military agreement founded had been active, together with members of the Tupamaro movement the Uruguayan movement of the Independent March 26, the part of the Uruguayan left-wing coalition Frente Amplio ( dt. Broad Front ) was. Benedetti was the leader of this movement.

After the military coup of 1973, he lost his position at the university and had to leave as a member of Marxist political groupings Uruguay. He settled first again in Buenos Aires in 1976 and went down to Cuba, where he became a member of the Governing Council of the Casa de las Américas. In 1980, Benedetti to Palma de Mallorca. Since 1982, he wrote on the opinion page of El País. Since 1983, Benedetti lived in Madrid.

In 1985 he returned to Uruguay and lived in the aftermath alternately in Madrid and Montevideo. With his return, his creative period of desexilio ( Entexil ), which he treated in many works began. He became a member of the editorial board of the new journal Brecha, which became the successor of Marcha.

Furthermore, Benedetti wrote for the Chilean newspaper Punto Final. He also belonged to juries in literature competitions in Uruguay, Argentina, Cuba, Panama, Ecuador, Mexico and Spain, as well as at the International Film Festival in Havana, San Sebastian and Valladolid.

Benedetti, whose debut work represented as the author of the 1945 book of poems La Víspera indeleble, during his life created a body of work of more than 80 books. His publications have been translated into over 25 languages ​​. Particularly successful here was his 1960 published novel La tregua, which has been translated into 15 languages ​​, published in 25 countries. Its substance was later also implement in cinema, television, radio and theater. Even the Roman Gracias por el fuego (1965) and three stories from Las sorpresas ( 1975) and his play Pedro y el Capitán were adapted for the cinema.

The Argentinian El lado oscuro del feature film corazón ( " The Dark Side of the Heart" ) by Eliseo Subiela portrayed 1992, a Uruguayan poet in Buenos Aires using many poems Benedetti. Benedetti had an appearance as a German poet. The film was shown, among others, at the Berlinale and made Benedetti to a wider audience.

In 1997 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Alicante, Valladolid University and the University of Havana.

Benedetti was married since 1946 with Luz López Alegre, who died of Alzheimer's in 2006. She stopped after 1973 in Uruguay and took care of their parents, so that the couple had to live apart for ten years. After living for a time period of six months a year in Spain and Uruguay, he only lived thereafter in Montevideo. Large parts of his library at Madrid, he has passed a research institute at the University of Alicante.

He was an honorary member of the National Academy of Letters in Montevideo.

Work

Poetry

• La Víspera indeleble (1945 )
• Poemas de oficina (1956 )
• La casa y el ladrillo (1977 )
• Viento del exilio (1982 )
• Yesterday y mañana (1988 )
• El amor, las mujeres y la vida. Poemas de amor (1996 )
• La vida ese PARENTESIS (1997)
• Defensa propia ( 2004) ( ISBN 950-731-438-5 )
• Little Stones At My Window ( Bilingual edition, translation and introduction by Charles Hatfield ) (ISBN 1-880684-90- X)

Short stories

• Montevideanos (1960 )

Essays

• El país de la cola de paja (1960 )

Novels

• La tregua (1960, dt "Grace Period")
• Gracias por el fuego (1965, dt "Thank you for the Fire" )
• El cumpleaños de Juan Angel (1971 )
• Primavera con una esquina rota (1982, German "Spring in the shade " )
• Geografías (1984, dt " On the fields of Time" )
• Las soledades de Babel ( 1991)
• La borra del café (1993, German " The Girl and the Fig Tree " )
• Andamios (1996 )

Plays

• Pedro y el capitán (1979; German " Pedro and the Captain " )

Film adaptations of his works (selection)

Settings of his poems

The Catalan singer-songwriter and musician Joan Manuel Serrat set to music poems by Mario Benedetti following in Spanish and Portuguese

• Currículum
• De Rund Rund a
• Defensa de la alegría
• El sur también existe
• Habanera
• Hagamos un trato
• Historia de vampiros
• Los formal y el frío
• Maravilla
• Papel mojado
• Testamento de miércoles
• Una mulher nua e no escuro ( Portuguese)
• Vas a parir felicidad

Prices

Benedetti received 1949-1958 several times the price of the Uruguayan Ministry of Education before he did not accept him because of dissatisfaction with the public procurement rules.

The film adaptation of Benedetti's work, The grace period (La tregua, German Movie Title: The Truce ), an Argentine production director Sergio Renán, was nominated for an Oscar in 1975 as Best Foreign Language Film, but the Amarcord Fellini won.

From the Cuban Council of State in 1982 he was awarded the Félix Varela Order, and in 1989 the Haydeé Santa María Medal.

In Mexico he received for his play Pedro y el Capitán the Amnesty International Award and the award for best foreign work.

In 1986 he was awarded for his poetic and essayistic work in Bulgaria Christo Botev Prize. 1987 awarded him Amnesty International in Brussels Golden Flame Prize for the novel " Spring in the shade " ( Primavera con una esquina rota ).

Since 1993, Benedetti was an honorary professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. The Faculty of Humanities and Educational Sciences ( FHCE ) of the Universidad de la República He retired in 1996. He also received honorary doctorates from the universities in Havana, Valladolid and Alicante.

In 1995, he was in Chile awarded the Gabriela Mistral Medal ( Medalla Gabriela Mistral ). In the following year he received in his home country for his essayistic work the Premio Bartolomé Hidalgo in the special issue ( Premio Especial Bartolomé Hidalgo ), he got again awarded five years later for his life's work on the basis of public voting.

Him the Queen Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry and in 2000 the Inter-American José Marti Prize was awarded in 1999. Also in 1999, appointed him the Academia Nacional de Letras de Uruguay honorary member ( Académico de Honor ). In the same year, the Uruguayan Ministry of Education and Culture awarded him together with Julio da Rosa for his intellectual work with the Great National Prize (Gran Premio Nacional) from.

2002 declared the Intendencia Municipal of Montevideo Benedetti freeman ( Ciudadano Ilustre ) of Montevideo.

In 2004 he received the Prize of the Etnosur Étnicos Encuentros de la Sierra Sur in Alcalá la Real ( Jaén, Spain).

On 7 June 2005, he was endowed with 48,000 euros Menéndez Pelayo International Award of the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo in Santander was awarded.

On 18 December 2007 Francisco de Miranda him the Medal, First Class was awarded the highest award of the State Venezuela for Science and Culture.