Mario Benedetti

The real influence on my work was reality, that of my country and Latin America in general.

When I have worries, fears or a love affair, I have the luck of being able to transform it into a poem.

I do not write for the reader to come, but for him who is here, short of reading the text on my shoulder.

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.

I came to feel that, in addition to Imre Kertesz, Hungary has produced at least three contemporary novelists who deserve the Nobel: Peter Nadas, Peter Esterhazy and Laszlo Krasznahorkai.

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.