Benedetti was born in Paso de los Toros in the department of Tacuarembó in a family of Italian descent. In 1946 he married Luz López Alegre.
From 1973 to 1985, when a military dictatorship ruled Uruguay, Benedetti lived in exile in Buenos Aires, Lima, Havana, and Spain. Following the restoration of democracy, he divided his time between Montevideo and Madrid. He has been granted Honoris Causa doctorates by the Universidad de la República, Uruguay, the Universidad de Alicante, Spain, and the Universidad de Valladolid, Spain. In 1986 he was awarded Laureate Of The International Botev Prize. On June 7, 2005, he was named the recipient of the Premio Menéndez y Pelayo. His poetry was also used in the 1992 Argentine movie
The Dark Side of the Heart (
El lado oscuro del corazón) in which he read some of his poems in German.
On January 26, 2006, Mario Benedetti joined other internationally renowned figures such as Gabriel García Márquez, Ernesto Sábato, Thiago de Mello, Eduardo Galeano, Carlos Monsiváis, Pablo Armando Fernández, Jorge Enrique Adoum, Pablo Milanés, Luis Rafael Sánchez, Mayra Montero and Ana Lydia Vega, in demanding sovereignty for Puerto Rico. The request for the recognition of Puerto Rico's independence was obtained at the behest of the Puerto Rican Independence Party.
He died in Montevideo on 17 May 2009. He had suffered from respiratory and intestinal problems for more than a year.
Before dying, he dictated to his personal secretary, Ariel Silva what would become his last poem :
- Mi vida ha sido como una farsa
- Mi arte ha consistido
- En que esta no se notara demasiado
- He sido como un levitador en la vejez
- El brillo marrón de los azulejos
- Jamás se separó de mi piel
- (Fragment)
A free translation into English of these few lines might be as follows:
- My life has been like a sham
- My art has consisted
- Of not being too noticed
- I've been just as hovering during my old age
- The brown sheen of the bluebirds
- Has never detached itself from my skin
- (Fragment)