Mario Benedetti is one of Uruguay's most prolific writers. He excels in all literary genres: novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, political articles, and polemical songs. Benedetti's seemingly inexhaustible creative power parallels his constant activity to improve the sociopolitical situation of his country and, by extension, all of Latin America. His writing reflects the idiosyncrasies of the Uruguayan middle class, the group that has been shaping the nation. The close relationship between his literature and exterior reality, or contemporary history, could be viewed as weakening the poetic value of his work. Some critics might classify Benedetti's oeuvre as "committed" or "engagé" literature. But Benedetti's literary works, even those of the 1970s, which clearly show his political preoccupations, are not merely representative or primarily didactic in intent. Benedetti transforms into literature the middle-class myths and reactions to contemporary history, becoming the sagacious and sympathetic contemporary analyst of the...