Books News
Uruguayan author Mario Benedetti dies at 88
May 19, 2009, 11:00 GMT
Montevideo - The Uruguayan author Mario Benedetti died at age 88 in Montevideo, his family said.
Benedetti, who died Sunday, was the most renowned writer in the small South American country and had a great influence on Spanish- language literature as a whole.
'The pain and the sadness will not go to sleep so soon. Mario Benedetti was there and now he is no longer there,' said the Portuguese author Jose Saramago, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.
Benedetti had been released from hospital two weeks ago, after getting treatment for a chronic intestinal illness and for respiratory problems.
The remains of the author - who lived in exile in Argentina, Cuba and Spain during the 1973-1985 dictatorship - were being honoured Monday in the Congress building, so Uruguayans could pay their last respects to him. He was set to be buried Tuesday.
