Uruguayan literature has a long and eventful history.

Beginnings

Literature properly speaking starts in

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

with the country-flavoured poetry of Bartolomé Hidalgo, 1788-1822. The two leading figures of the Romantic period are Adolfo Berro and Juan Zorrilla de San Martín.ll

''Modernistas''

Julio Herrera y Reissig was one of the fin-de-siècle ''modernistas'', two leading women are Juana de Ibarbourou, who was one of the most popular writers of

Spanish America Spanish America refers to the Spanish territories in the Americas during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The term "Spanish America" was specifically used during the territories' Spanish Empire, imperial era between 15th and 19th centur ...

, and Delmira Agustini. Emilio Frugoni and Emilio Oribe were distinguished lyricists.

Other important figures

Outstanding among the prose and fiction figures are Juan Carlos Onetti, Carlos Martínez Moreno,

Eduardo Galeano Eduardo Germán María Hughes Galeano (; 3 September 1940 – 13 April 2015) was a Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist considered, among other things, "a literary giant of the Latin American left" and "global soccer's pre-eminent man of le ...

, Felisberto Hernández, Mario Benedetti, Tomás de Mattos, Mauricio Rosencof and Jorge Majfud. Horacio Quiroga was a popular playwright and short-story writer. Constancio C. Vigil was once a beloved, if highly moralistic, children's writer.

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...

, while Argentine, was a commentator on the Uruguayan historical and cultural scene; some of his characters are realistically

an. Florencio Sánchez remains Uruguay's most famous theater writer.

Writers from Northern Uruguay

While many of

's writers have been primarily connected with the capital

Montevideo Montevideo (, ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2023 census, the city proper has a population of 1,302,954 (about 37.2% of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

, a number have been identified with the north of the country.

References

External links