Literature properly speaking starts in Uruguay 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 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,[1] and Delmira Agustini.
Outstanding among the prose and fiction figures are Juan Carlos Onetti, Carlos Martínez Moreno, Eduardo Galeano, Felisberto Hernández, Mario Benedetti, Tomás de Mattos, Mauricio Rosencof and Jorge Majfud.
[2] Constancio C. Vigil was once a beloved, if highly moralistic, children's writer.
While many of Uruguay's writers have been primarily connected with the capital Montevideo, a number have been identified with the north of the country.