Mario Benedetti Books

The definitive bilingual selection of Benedetti's poetry in English, a major Latin American voice.

Set in a confined space, the play explores the intense psychological dynamics between Pedro, an inmate, and the Captain, his tormentor. Through their interactions, themes of power, suffering, and resilience emerge as Pedro confronts his fate while the Captain enforces his authority. The minimal cast heightens the tension, making each exchange critical in revealing their complex relationship and the moral ambiguities of their situation.

Santiago is trapped. Taken political prisoner in Montevideo after a brutal military coup, he can do nothing but write letters to his family, and try to stay sane. Far away, his nine-year-old daughter Beatrice wonders at the marvels of 1970s Buenos Aires, but her grandpa and mother - Santiago's beautiful, careworn wife, Graciela - struggle to adjust to a life in exile. Graciela fights to retain the fiery passion that suffused her marriage, her politics, her whole life, as day by day Santiago edges closer to freedom. But Santiago's rakish, reckless best friend is a constant, brooding presence in the exiles' lives, and Graciela finds herself drawn irresistibly towards him. A lucid, heart-wrenching saga of a family torn apart by the forces of history, Springtime in a Broken Mirror tells with tenderness and fury of the indelible imprint politics leaves on individual lives. Generous and unflinching, it asks whether the broken bonds of family and history can ever truly be mended.

Forty-nine, with a kind face, no serious ailments, a good salary and three moody children, widowed accountant Martin Santome is about to retire. He assumes he'll take up gardening, or the guitar, or whatever retired people do. What he least expects is to fall passionately in love with his shy young employee Laura Avellaneda.

'This novel is a jewel ... one of those books that enters the soul, which it is impossible not to be conquered by. It is a masterpiece like few others' Huffington Post Miguel and Alicia fall quietly in love as teenagers, walking back from school together. When Lucas - enigmatic, charismatic - arrives, everything changes, and Miguel is certain he has lost Alicia. Yet, against the odds, she marries him. Now, eleven years later, their marriage has begun to fray, and Alicia sets out to see Lucas again. As each member of this strange love triangle tells their side of what happened, an unforgettable story of desire, deception and tragic misunderstanding unfolds.

Ambientados en el medio urbano de Montevideo, los treinta y cinco CUENTOS de esta antología, seleccionados por el propio autor, giran en torno a la cotidiana peripecia de la pequeña burguesía ciudadana: funcionarios públicos, empleados de banca o tenderos que animan la vida de la capital y padecen la estrechez de sus horizontes. Con una prosa cargada de ironía, sobria, precisa, producto de un sabio oficio y de una cuidadosa labor de depuración, Mario Benedetti logra trascender la individualidad de sus modestos personajes, inmersos en existencias grises siempre acechadas por posibilidades dramáticas, para ofrecer al lector un cuadro veraz y complejo de la sociedad contemporánea.

Novela en envase autobiografico y contenido ficcional, Andamios es una de esas Obras excepcionales en la literatura en la que la mirada se acerca con tanto humor y amor a los seres humanos que acierta en conventirse en reflejo de cualquiera de nosotros. De regreso en su pais, Javier Montes va encontrando, uno a uno, a sus amigos y companeros de antes. Alli estan el politico, el soplon, el revolucionario y el esceptico, pero digno y fiel.

Existen sorpresas que pueden cambiar nuestro destino. Existe la sorpresa mayor, para la cual nadie está preparado (aunque se la anuncien): la muerte. En los cuentos que integran este volumen, Mario Benedetti narra el descubrimiento de que vida y muerte son dos caras de un mismo acontecimiento: placer y dolor, inquietud y calma, tiempo de ida y tiempo de regreso, presencia permanente donde se desarrolla el secreto del drama humano.

Digo que no puede decirse el amor.El amor se come como un pan,se muerde como un labio,se bebe como un manantial.Mario Benedetti seleccionó los mejores poemas de amor para que las nuevas generaciones se inicien en la obra de Jaime Sabines, a quien consideraba «el más notable precursor de la poesía coloquial en América Latina» y «uno de los poetas fundamentales, no sólo de México sino de Hispanoamérica y la lengua castellana».