"Oh Kepi, Kepi, You've Really Hurt me,"
Benedetti, Mario
regarding political prisoners in Uruguay: "I don't know what we owe them, But what I don't know, I know is plenty..." -Mario Benedetti I. The worker said to the progressive soldier: "Maybe...
...The story published here is from Con y sin nostalgia, a collection of short stories edited in Mexico in 1978...
...So what...
...The Socialist said to the Christian Democrat: "I think that our discrepancies over heaven don't need to obstruct our agreements on earth...
...The -Mario Benedetti has been hailed as Uruguay's finest writer of novels, short stories and essays...
...That great commitment you have to liberty...
...Do you hold that against us, too...
...The Battlista said to the nationalist Blanco: "And well, one must admit that you have at times taken an anti-imperialist stance that we lacked...
...And so on...
...The foquista said to the progressive soldier: "I don't think that you, as an institution, will ever be on the side of the people...
...4. gorilla: pejorative term used for the military in Latin America...
...He took off his kepi, hurled it into the sewer and, somewhat disconcerted, retired to his winter barracks...
...The anarchist said to the Trot: "You're a tiny sect of rubbish...
...The Christian Democrat said to the Socialist: "I can understand your being an atheist, but I'll never forgive you for not believing in private property...
...The anarchist said to the Maoist: "Thinking it over, it wouldn't be bad if one hundred flowers blossomed...
...The Christian Democrat said to the anarchist: "You know what I borrow from your traditions...
...The Trot said to the foquista: "You people at least risk your lives, shit...
...Just in case, he didn't yell: "Fire...
...The soldiers aimed at him...
...The nationalist Blanco said to the Socialist: "Maybe I lacked your obsession with social justice...
...The Bolshevik said to the Maoist: "We have our base in the working class...
...Mario Benedetti I. The worker said to the progressive soldier: "Maybe your intentions are good, but you'll be giving orders until the day you die...
...The Trot said to the foquista 3 : "You're condemned to defeat because you isolated yourself from the masses...
...Notes 1. Blanco: member of the conservative National Party in Uruguay...
...Forced into exile in the early 1970s by Uruguay's military rulers, Benedetti now lives in Cuba...
...Aim," said the gorilla, adjusting his kepi...
...The foquista said to the Bolshevik: "You also had dissidents...
...The Socialist said to the anarchist: "Did it ever occur to you to wonder why you've never had a successful revolution...
...Flaurie S. Imberman completed graduate work in Comparative Literature and Sociology at SUNY-Binghamton...
...But I can believe in you as an individual...
...The Maoist said to the Bolshevik: "What do you think about us making an exception and agreeing on the question of social justice...
...yelled the gorilla 4 , adjusting his kepi, and a truck picked up the cadavers...
...Her translations of Latin American literature will be forthcoming in the Latin American Literary Review, Modern Poetry in Translation and other publications...
...Your agrarian reform could fit in a flowerpot...
...And so on...
...3. foquista: supporter of foco guerrilla theory, developed by Regis Debray and put into practice by Che Guevara...
...The Bolshevik said to the Trot: "If only that bit about permanent revolution were true...
...40 Battlista said to the Christian Democrat: "I don't capitalize god...
...The nationalist Blanco said to the Battlista 2 : "The problem is that all of you always forgot about the people in the countryside...
...2. Battlista: supporter of politics articulated in the early 1900s by Jose Battle y Ordoriez, a precursor of populism in Latin America...
...The progressive soldier said to the nationalist Blanco': "Want me to be honest with you...
...Aim, fire...
...The progressive soldier said to the worker: "When we hear that bit about Workers of the World, Unite, will you save a little place for me...
Vol. 14 • November 1980 • No. 6
