Geographies of Oppression

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Geographies premieres six stories by Mario Benedetti as a staged reading. Benedetti’s stories tackle oppression, and exile, themes he knew first hand. While publishing fiction in Montevideo, he also worked as a journalist . In June 1973, a military dictatorship seized power, closed the newspaper, and set about persecuting intellectuals and leftists, in concert with “Operation Condor,”. Benedetti was fortunat to leave the country. Living in exile in Argentina, Peru, Cuba, and Madrid he was separated from friends and, most painfully, his wife. Only after 1985, when a constitutional government was reinstated and political prisoners released, were they reunited. In exile and back in Uruguay, Benedetti wrote about those terrible twelve years, not just of exiles, but of those left at home, of torture and torturers. His dark sense of humor and surprising approaches to these subjects are poignant and gut wrenching. In selecting stories from Cuentos Completos, translator/stageadaptor Marsland looked for striking characters, lively dialogue, and a range of situations that might create a canvas, of oppressed and oppresser alike and their children. Today, millions are in exile, and Benedetti’s work may help us visualize their unseen traumas and scars. The Benedetti Foundation has authorized this production. Professor (University of New Mexico, Willamette University) and MFA veteran director, Julie Akers will oversee the direction.

The Media Project