Mario Benedetti

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Mario Benedetti

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

Life

Benedetti was born to Brenno Benedetti and Matilde Farugia, a couple of Italian roots. When he was four years old, his parents moved him to Montevideo. He started school in 1928 and attended the Colegio Alemán until 1933 , then the Liceo Miranda for a year . In 1934 he entered the Escuela Raumsólica de Logosofía , a school founded by the philosopher Carlos Bernardo González Pecotche (1901–1963), among other things, to spread his concept of logosophy . In 1935 he began studying for the Abitur at the Liceo Miranda, but had to end his school career that same year for financial reasons. When he was 14, he started working for Will L. Smith, SA , an auto parts company. From 1938 to 1941 he lived mainly in Buenos Aires in Argentina .

In 1945 he settled again in Montevideo and joined the editorial team of the weekly Marcha , for which he worked until 1974, when the newspaper was closed under the Juan María Bordaberry government, which was heavily influenced by the military . From 1954 he was head of the literary department in the editorial office. As a master of the small form, he ironically ironized the saturated life of the citizens of Montevideo, who could retire at the age of 45.

In addition to his work for Marcha, he headed the literary newspaper Marginalia from 1948 (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 page Al pie de las letras of the daily newspaper La mañana . He wrote movie reviews for La Tribuna Popular and worked on the humorous magazine Peloduro .

In Cuba, Benedetti was a member of the jury for the Casa de las Américas cultural award in 1966 . In 1967 he took part in the Second Latin American Writers' Congress. In the same year he became a member of the board of directors of the Casa de las Américas in Cuba , whose literary research center he founded and headed until 1971.

In 1971 he became director of the Department of Hispanic American Literature in the Faculty of Humanities and Sciences (FHC) at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo. In the same year Benedetti, who had already been active in the protest movement against the inter-American military agreement signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1948, together with members of the Tupamaro movement founded the Uruguayan Movement of Independents March 26th, part of the Uruguayan left-wing coalition Frente Amplio (Eng . Broad front) was. Benedetti was the leader of this movement.

After the 1973 military coup , he lost his university job and had to leave Uruguay as a member of Marxist political groups. He first settled in Buenos Aires again and went to Cuba in 1976, where he became a member of the board of directors of the Casa de las Américas. In 1980 Benedetti moved to Palma . Since 1982 he has been writing on the opinion page for El País . Benedetti lived in Madrid since 1983 .

In 1985 he returned to Uruguay and subsequently lived alternately in Madrid and Montevideo. With his return began his creative period desexilio (entexil) , which he dealt with in many works. He became a member of the editorial board of the new magazine Brecha , which succeeded Marcha .

Benedetti also wrote for the Chilean newspaper Punto Final . He was also a member of juries at literary competitions in Uruguay, Argentina, Cuba, Panama, Ecuador, Mexico and Spain, as well as at international film festivals in Havana, San Sebastian and Valladolid.

Benedetti, whose debut work as an author in 1945 was the volume of poetry La víspera indeleble , created a total of more than 80 books in the course of his life. His publications have been translated into over 25 languages. His novel La tregua , published in 1960, was particularly successful and , translated into 19 languages, was published in more than 25 countries. Its material was later implemented in the cinema, television, radio and theater. The novel Gracias por el fuego (1965) and three stories from Las sorpresas (1975) as well as his play Pedro y el Capitán were also adapted for the cinema.

The Argentine feature film El lado oscuro del corazón ("The dark side of the heart") by Eliseo Subiela portrayed a Uruguayan poet in Buenos Aires in 1992 using numerous poems by Benedetti. Benedetti made an appearance as a German poet. The film was shown at the Berlinale , among others , and made Benedetti known to a wider audience.

Always somewhat in the shadow of the avant-garde Onetti , Benedetti was the more traditional but also more political author.

In 1997 he received honorary doctorates from the University of Alicante , the University of Valladolid and the University of Havana . He was also an honorary member of the National Academy of Literature in Montevideo.

Benedetti had been married to Luz López Alegre since 1946, who died of Alzheimer's in 2006. She stayed in Uruguay after 1973 and looked after her parents, so that the couple had to live apart for ten years. After living in Spain and Uruguay for six months each year, he then only lived in Montevideo. He has given large parts of his library in Madrid to a research institute at the University of Alicante.

plant

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 (1959)

Essays

  • El país de la cola de paja (1960)

Novels

  • La tregua (1960, German "The grace period")
  • Gracias por el fuego (1965, German "Thank you for the fire")
  • El cumpleaños de Juan Angel (1971)
  • Primavera con una esquina rota (1982, Eng. "Spring in the shade")
  • Geografías (1984, German "In the fields of time")
  • Las soledades de Babel (1991)
  • La borra del café (1993, Eng. "The girl and the fig tree")
  • Andamios (1996)

Plays

  • Pedro y el capitán (1979; Eng. "Pedro and the captain")

Film adaptations of his works (selection)

Setting of his poems to music

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

  • Curriculum
  • De arbol a arbol
  • Defensa de la alegría
  • El sur también exist
  • Habanera
  • Hagamos un trato
  • Historia de vampiros
  • Los formales y el frío
  • Maravilla
  • Papule mojado
  • Testamento de miércoles
  • Una mulher nua e no escuro (Portuguese)
  • Vas a parir felicidad

Prices

Benedetti received the prize from the Uruguayan Ministry of Education several times between 1949 and 1958 before he refused to accept it due to dissatisfaction with the award rules.

The film adaptation of Benedetti's work Die Gnadenfrist ( La tregua , German film title: Der Waffenstillstand ), an Argentine production by director Sergio Renán , was nominated for the 1975 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film , which was won by Fellini's Amarcord .

The Cuban State Council awarded him the Félix Varela Order in 1982 and the Haydeé Santamaría Medal in 1989 .

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

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

Benedetti has been an honorary professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires since 1993 . In 1996 he retired from the Faculty of Humanities and Education (FHCE) of the Universidad de la República . He also received honorary doctorates from the universities in Havana , Valladolid and Alicante .

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

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

In 2002 the Intendencia Municipal of Montevideo declared Benedetti an honorary citizen ( Ciudadano Ilustre ) of Montevideo.

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

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

On December 18, 2007, he was awarded the Francisco de Miranda Order, First Class, Venezuela's highest honor for science and culture.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Benedetti, Mario
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Benedetti Farugia, Mario Orlando Hamlet Hardy Brenno (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Uruguayan journalist, poet and writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Paso de los Toros , Tacuarembó
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 2009
Place of death Montevideo