Tributes paid to famed writer Benedetti, who dies at 88

Описание: (18 May 2009) SHOTLIST
AP Television
Montevideo, Uruguay, 18 May 2009
1. Various exteriors of Legislative Palace
2. Woman walking into hall past guards
3. Various of relatives and friends of poet Mario Benedetti around the coffin
4. Pan from people waiting to pay their respects
5. Wide of body lying in state
6. Close up of Mario Benedetti
7. Wide high shot of people paying their respects
8. Various of people, walking by coffin, paying their respects
9. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Daniel Viglieti, musician and friend of Benedetti:
"Mario, the person, the human being, is gone. He was exceptional and irreplaceable. We are loosing a writer whose work could not be separated from the way he was. It was one of those cases where both things are so united. He had an ethic, a way of being, so humble, so unpretentious, without the tics from being a writer and so well known, on top of that."
10. Various of relatives and friends around the coffin
11. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Silvia Lago, professor of Literature and friend of Benedetti:
"I want to speak about the person he was. He was a man of great principles, of great kindness, with a special way of getting in contact with the people. He would address everyone as 'close neighbour,' all those people who are here today, and they would stop him in the street to ask for an autograph at anytime, even on a napkin."
12. Various of relatives and friends sitting by the coffin
STORYLINE
URUGUAYAN POET BENEDETTI DIES
Thousands of people queued on Monday at the Legislative Palace in Montevideo to pay their respects to Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti, one of Latin America's most admired writers.
Benedetti, a prolific writer whose novels and poems reflected the idiosyncrasies of Uruguay's middle class and a social commitment forged by years in exile from the country's military dictatorship died on Sunday at the age of 88.
Benedetti died at his home in Uruguay's capital, Montevideo, said his personal secretary, Ariel Silva.
He had suffered from respiratory and intestinal problems for more than a year and had been released from hospital on 6 May.
He had also spent a month in hospital in January 2008.
Friends said he never really recovered from the death of his wife Luz Lopez who died in 2006 after 46 years of marriage.
Called "Don Mario" by his friends, the author penned more than 60 novels, poems, short stories and plays, winning numerous honours including Bulgaria's Jristo Borev award for poetry and essays, and Amnesty International's Golden Flame prize.
In 1999 he won the Queen Sofia prize for Iberoamerican poetry.
His writings on love, politics and life in Uruguay's capital were turned into popular songs and a movie, and his readings in his homeland attracted sold-out crowds.
Benedetti's 1960 novel "The Truce" was translated into 19 languages and along with "Thank You for the Fire" in 1965, heralded his inclusion in the Latin American literary boom in the 1960s along with Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa and Mexico's Carlos Fuentes.
While Benedetti was renowned throughout Latin America, he never attained the other authors' popularity in the English-speaking world.
Benedetti leaned to the political left and firmly defended the Cuban revolution to the end of his life.
In 2006, he joined other Latin American leftist authors in a call for Puerto Rican independence.
Benedetti was born on 14 September 1920, in the city of Paso de los Toros.
In 1973 he joined thousands of other Uruguayans fleeing the nation's military dictatorship, spending 12 years in exile in Havana, Madrid, Lima and Buenos Aires.

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