Together with Paulina Medeiros, Armonía Somers, Clara Silva and Selva Márquez, Montserrat was one of the most important female voices of what Emir Rodríguez Monegal called Narrativa Uruguaya of the Middle Century.
At age 17, she published Arriates en flor, a book of poems where some influence of Juana de Ibarbourou can be discovered[1] but where most shone was in the very short story.
[2] There, Cotelo says: "she has tried to pick up a Montevideo that is leaving and some Montevidean that disappear" in reference to the sensitivity of the author to unravel "the thick tangle of relationships that binds the family group within the upper middle class, some in decadence".
Between February 24, 1976 and until the date of her death, she occupied the chair "Bartolomé Hidalgo" at the Academia Nacional de Letras.
[3] She was the mother of the historian Marta Canessa, the former First Lady of Uruguay and wife of the Uruguayan former president Julio María Sanguinetti.