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"Borges" redirects here. For other uses, see Borges (disambiguation). Borges is a common Surname of Spanish and Portuguese language.
Jorge Luis Borges

Born Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges
August 24, 1899(1899-08-24)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died June 14, 1986 (aged 86)
Geneva, Switzerland
Occupation writer, poet, critic, librarian
Influences
Influenced

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges (24 August 1899 - 14 June 1986) was an Argentine writer. Events 49 BC - Julius Caesar 's General Gaius Scribonius Curio is defeated in the Second Battle of the Bagradas River Year 1899 ( MDCCCXCIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Buenos Aires is the Capital and largest city of Argentina. It is geographically located on the southern shore of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. Events 1276 - While taking exile in Fuzhou in southern China, away from the advancing Mongol invaders, the remnants of the Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) Geneva (Genève is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and is the most populous city of Romandy (the French -speaking Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation Employment is a Contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. A writer is anyone who creates a written work although the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally as well as those who have written in many different forms A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" The word critic comes from the Greek el κριτικός ( el-Latn kritikós) "able to discern" which in turn derives from the word A librarian is an information Professional trained in Library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin Homer ( Ancient Greek:, Homēros) is a legendary ancient Greek epic Poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Heraclitus of Ephesus ( Ancient Greek: &mdash grc-Latn ''Hērákleitos ho Ephésios'' English Heraclitus the Ephesian) (ca Publius Vergilius Maro ( October 15, 70 BCE &ndash September 21, 19 BCE later called Virgilius, and known in English as Virgil or Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( in modern Spanish; September 29, 1547 &ndash April 22, 1616) was a Spanish Novelist Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (French miʃɛl ekɛm də mɔ̃tɛɲ ( February 28 1533 &ndash September 13 1592) was one of the most influential writers Kabbalah (קַבָּלָה lit "receiving" is a discipline and school of thought discussing the mystical aspect of Judaism. Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 George Berkeley (ˈbɑrkli (12 March 1685 14 January 1753 also known as Bishop Berkeley, was a Philosopher. David Hume (26 April 1711 25 August 1776 Scottish Philosopher, Economist, and Historian is an important figure in Western philosophy Biography Jan Potocki (pronounced 'Pototski' was born in 1761 into the great Potocki family an old aristocratic family which owned vast estates in Poland Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (ˈsœːɐn ˈkʰiɐ̯kəˌɡ̊ɒˀ in Danish Anglicized as;) Christian Johann Heinrich Heine ( December 13, 1797 – February 17, 1856) was a Journalist, Essayist and one of the Edgar Allan Poe (January 19 1809 – October 7 1849 was an American poet, short-story Writer, editor and Literary critic, Walter Whitman (May 31 1819 &ndash March 26 1892 was an American poet, Essayist journalist, and humanist. Thomas de Quincey (15 August 1785 &ndash 8 December 1859 was an English author and intellectual best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850–3 December 1894 was a Scottish novelist poet and travel writer, and a representative of Neo-romanticism in (Mayer André Marcel Schwob, French writer was born in Chaville on 23 August 1867, died on 12 February 1905. Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936 was an English Author and poet Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881 was a Scottish essayist satirist and historian whose work was highly influential during the Victorian era. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 &ndash 13 January 1941 was an Irish expatriate writer widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the Léon Bloy ( Périgueux, July 11, 1846 - Bourg-la-Reine, November 3, 1917) was a French Novelist Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry (French pɔl valeˈʁi October 30, 1871 – July 20, 1945) was a French Poet Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 &ndash 13 August 1946 He was an outspoken socialist and a pacifist, his later works becoming increasingly political Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936 was an influential English writer of the early 20th century Adolfo Bioy Casares (September 15 1914 – March 8 1999 was an Argentine fiction writer For the professional basketball player see Alfonso Reyes (basketball Alfonso Reyes Ochoa ( 17 May 1889, Monterrey Macedonio Fernández ( 1 June 1874 - 10 February 1952) was an Argentine writer humorist and philosopher For the astronaut see Jose Hernandez, for the Baseball player see José Hernández. Carlos Fuentes Macías (born March 11,1928 is a Mexican writer and one of the best-known living novelists and essayists in the Spanish -speaking world Paul Benjamin Auster (born February 3, 1947, Newark New Jersey) is a Brooklyn -based author known for works blending Absurdism Stanisław Lem ( sta'ɲiswaf lɛm 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006 was a Polish Science fiction, philosophical and satirical writer Danilo Kiš ( Serbian Cyrillic: Данило Киш) ( February 22, 1935 &ndash October 15, 1989) was a Yugoslavian Georges Perec ( 7 March 1936 &ndash 3 March 1982) was a highly-regarded French Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr (born May 8 1937 is an American writer based in New York City, noted for his dense and complex works of Fiction. Umberto Eco (born 5 January 1932 is an Italian Medievalist, semiotician, Philosopher, literary critic and Novelist, best Italo Calvino ( October 15, 1923 &ndash September 19, 1985) (ˈiːtalo kalˈviːno was an Italian journalist and writer of short Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born on 7 June 1952 in Istanbul) generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish Novelist and professor of Comparative César Aira (born on February 23, 1949 in Coronel Pringles, Buenos Aires Province) is an Argentine writer and translator considered Roberto Bolaño Ávalos ( April 28, 1953 — July 15, 2003) was a Latin American Adolfo Bioy Casares (September 15 1914 – March 8 1999 was an Argentine fiction writer Philip Kindred Dick (December 16 – March 2) was an American Science fiction Novelist and Short story Writer. Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. Jean Baudrillard ( July 29, 1929   – March 6, 2007) (ʒɑ̃ bo W G (Winfred Georg Maximilian Sebald ( May 18, 1944, Wertach im Allgäu &ndash December 14, 2001, Norfolk, England Enrique Vila-Matas (born March 31 1948, in Barcelona) is a Spanish Novelist. Events 49 BC - Julius Caesar 's General Gaius Scribonius Curio is defeated in the Second Battle of the Bagradas River Year 1899 ( MDCCCXCIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 1276 - While taking exile in Fuzhou in southern China, away from the advancing Mongol invaders, the remnants of the Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. His output includes short stories, essays, poetry, literary criticism, and translations. He was influenced by Dante Alighieri, Miguel de Cervantes, Franz Kafka, H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, H. P. Lovecraft, Arthur Schopenhauer, G. K. Chesterton, Leopoldo Lugones, and R. L. Stevenson. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( in modern Spanish; September 29, 1547 &ndash April 22, 1616) was a Spanish Novelist Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 &ndash 13 August 1946 He was an outspoken socialist and a pacifist, his later works becoming increasingly political Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936 was an English Author and poet Howard Phillips Lovecraft ( August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936 was an influential English writer of the early 20th century Leopoldo Lugones Argüello ( 13 June 1874 - 18 February 1938) was an Argentine writer and journalist Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850–3 December 1894 was a Scottish novelist poet and travel writer, and a representative of Neo-romanticism in

Contents

Parents

Borges's mother, Leonor Acevedo Suárez, came from an old Uruguayan family. Uruguay.(official full name in República Oriental del Uruguay;, Oriental Republic of Uruguay) is a country located in the southeastern part of South America His 1929 book Cuaderno San Martín included a poem "Isidoro Acevedo," commemorating his maternal grandfather, Isidoro de Acevedo Laprida, a soldier of the Buenos Aires Army who fought against Juan Manuel de Rosas. Buenos Aires is the Capital and largest city of Argentina. It is geographically located on the southern shore of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern Juan Manuel de Rosas (born Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rozas y López de Osornio in Buenos Aires, March 30, 1793 &ndash Southampton A descendant of the Argentine lawyer and politician Francisco Narciso de Laprida, Acevedo fought in the battles of Cepeda in 1859, Pavón in 1861, and Los Corrales in 1880. Francisco Narciso de Laprida ( October 28, 1786 in San Juan &ndash September 22, 1829) was an Argentine lawyer and politician The Battle of Cepeda of 1859 took place on October 23 of that year in Cañada de Cepeda, Santa Fe, Argentina, and in which Federal The Battle of Pavón was a key battle of the Argentina civil wars fought in Pavón, in Santa Fé Province, Argentina, on September 17 1861 The Battle of Los Corrales took place in Parque Patricios, Buenos Aires, Argentina, on June 21, 1880, and confronted the side led He died in 1905 of pulmonary congestion in the same house in Serrano Street, Buenos Aires, where his grandson Jorge Luis Borges was born.

Borges's father, Jorge Guillermo Borges Haslam, was a lawyer and psychology teacher with literary aspirations. A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law as an attorney, Counsel or Solicitor; a person Psychology (from Greek grc ψῡχή psȳkhē, "breath life soul" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Academic and (". . . he tried to become a writer and failed in the attempt," Borges once said, ". . . [but] composed some very good sonnets"). The sonnet is one of the poetic forms that can be found in Lyric poetry from Europe. His father was part Spanish, part Portuguese, and half British; his father's mother was British and maintained a strong spirit of English culture in Borges's home. Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located In this home, both Spanish and English were spoken and from earliest childhood Borges was bilingual, reading Shakespeare, in English, at the age of 12. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States He grew up in the then somewhat poor neighborhood of Palermo, in a large house equipped with an extensive English library. Palermo is a neighborhood or Barrio of the Argentine capital Buenos Aires.

Jorge Guillermo Borges was forced into early retirement from the legal profession owing to the same failing eyesight that would eventually afflict his son, and in 1914, the family moved to Geneva. Geneva (Genève is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and is the most populous city of Romandy (the French -speaking Borges senior was treated by a Geneva eye specialist, while his son and daughter Norah attended school. Norah Borges (b Palermo Buenos Aires, 1901-1998 was an artist and is the sister of the writer Jorge Luis Borges. There Borges junior learned French, initially with some difficulties, and taught himself German. He received his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The baccalauréat (bakaloʁeˈa often known in France colloquially as le bac or le bachôt, is an academic qualification which History On February 24, 1428

Life

Youth

Borges was born on August 24, 1899 in Buenos aires, Argentina, to an educated family descended from famous military figures in Argentina's history; in accordance with Argentine custom, he never used his entire name. Buenos Aires is the Capital and largest city of Argentina. It is geographically located on the southern shore of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. His family was comfortably wealthy, but not quite wealthy enough to live in downtown Buenos Aires. Instead, they lived in the then suburb of Palermo, famous for its knife-fights, where urban space gave way to the countryside.

In 1914 the Borges family went to Europe and stayed until 1921 because of World War I and domestic unrest in neutral Argentina. First in Switzerland and later in Spain, Borges came into contact with several authors who would impact his writing, Arthur Schopenhauer and Gustav Meyrink's The Golem (1915) being key examples. Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Gustav Meyrink ( January 19 1868 – December 4 1932) was an Austrian author storyteller dramatist translator Banker and After World War I ended, the Borges family spent three years living in various cities: Lugano (Switzerland), Barcelona, Majorca, Seville, and Madrid. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Lugano ( Latin language: Luganum) is a town (52993 inhabitants a total of 130000 people in the agglomeration in the south of Switzerland, in the Barcelona ( Catalan bəɾsəˈlonə Spanish baɾθeˈlona is the capital and most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia Majorca ( Spanish and Mallorca is the largest island of Spain. Seville ( Spanish: Sevilla, see also different names) is the artistic cultural and financial capital of southern Spain. Madrid (pronounced in English in Spanish and colloquially in Spain) is the Capital and largest city of Spain. In Spain, Borges became a member of the avant-garde Ultraist literary movement (anti-Modernism, which ended in 1922 with the cessation of the journal Ultra). Avant-garde (avɑ̃gaʁd in French) means "advance guard" or "vanguard The Ultraist movement ( ultraísmo) was a literary movement born in Spain in 1918 with the declared intention of opposing Modernism His first poem, "Hymn to the Sea," written in the style of Walt Whitman, was published in the magazine Grecia ("Greece", in Spanish). Walter Whitman (May 31 1819 &ndash March 26 1892 was an American poet, Essayist journalist, and humanist. There he frequented such notable Spanish writers as Rafael Cansinos Assens and Ramón Gómez de la Serna. Rafael Cansinos Assens ( November 24, 1882 - July 6, 1964) born in Seville, was a Spanish Poet, essayist Ramón Gómez de la Serna (1888-1963 was a Spanish Writer, Dramatist and Avant-garde agitator

Early writing career

In 1921, Borges returned with his family to Buenos Aires where he imported the doctrine of Ultraism and launched his career as a writer by publishing poems and essays in literary journals in the Criollismo style. The Ultraist movement ( ultraísmo) was a literary movement born in Spain in 1918 with the declared intention of opposing Modernism In 1930, Nestor Ibarra called Borges the "Great Apostle of Criollismo. "[1] His first published collection of poetry was Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923). He contributed to the avant-garde review Martín Fierro (whose "art for art's sake" approach contrasted to that of the more politically-involved Boedo group); co-founded the journals Prisma , a broadsheet distributed largely by pasting copies to walls in Buenos Aires), and Proa ). Martín Fierro was an Argentine literary magazine which appeared from February 1924 to 1927 " Art for art's sake " is the usual English rendition of a French Slogan, from the early 19th century l'art pour l'art and expresses a philosophy Boedo is a Working class neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Later in life Borges would come to regret some of these early publications, attempting to purchase all known copies to ensure their destruction. [2]

By the mid-1930s, his writings began to deal with existential questions, and with what Ana María Barrenechea has called "irreality. " Borges was not alone in this task. Many other Latin American writers such as Juan Rulfo, Juan José Arreola, and Alejo Carpentier investigated these themes in their writings, influenced by the Phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger or the Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. Juan Rulfo ( 16 May 1917 &ndash 7 January 1986) was a Mexican Novelist, short story writer and photographer Juan José Arreola Zúñiga ( September 21, 1918 – December 3, 2001) was a Mexican writer and academic Alejo Carpentier y Valmont ( December 26, 1904 – April 24, 1980) was a Cuban novelist essay writer and musicologist who greatly Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (ˈhʊsɛrl April 8 1859 – April 26 1938) was a philosopher, known as the father of Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher Existentialism is a philosophical doctrine which posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives and that this essence follows from their existence Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (21 June 1905 &ndash 15 April 1980 commonly known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre (ʒɑ̃ pol saʁtʁə was a French Even though existentialism saw its apogee during the years of Borges's greatest artistic production, it can be argued that his choice of topics largely ignored existentialism's central tenets. To that point, Paul de Man has written:

Whatever Borges's existential anxieties may be, they have little in common with Sartre's robustly prosaic view of literature, with the earnestness of Camus' moralism, or with the weighty profundity of German existential thought. Paul de Man ( December 6, 1919 December 21, 1983) was a Belgian -born Deconstructionist literary critic and Rather, they are the consistent expansion of a purely poetic consciousness to its furthest limits (22). [3]

He was, from the first issue, a regular contributor to Sur, founded in 1931 by Victoria Ocampo, then Argentina's most important literary journal. Sur was a literary Journal published in Buenos Aires. Its main backer was Victoria Ocampo, and it was supported intellectually Victoria Ocampo ( Buenos Aires, April 7, 1890 - Buenos Aires January 27, 1979) was an Argentine intellectual described Ocampo herself introduced Borges to Adolfo Bioy Casares, another well-known figure of Argentine literature, who was to become a frequent collaborator and dear friend. Adolfo Bioy Casares (September 15 1914 – March 8 1999 was an Argentine fiction writer Together they wrote a number of works, some using pseudonyms (H. Bustos Domecq), including a parody detective series and fantasy stories.

Also during these years Macedonio Fernández became a major influence on Borges, who inherited the friendship from his father. Macedonio Fernández ( 1 June 1874 - 10 February 1952) was an Argentine writer humorist and philosopher The two would hold court in cafés, country retreats, or Macedonio's tiny apartment in the Balvanera district. Balvanera is a neighborhood (" barrio " of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In 1933 Borges gained an editorial appointment at the literary supplement of the newspaper Crítica, where he first published the pieces later collected as the Historia universal de la infamia (A Universal History of Infamy). A newspaper is a written Publication containing News, information and Advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called Newsprint. A Universal History of Infamy, or A Universal History of Iniquity, (original Spanish title Historia universal de la infamia This involved two types of pieces. The first lay somewhere between non-fictional essays and short stories, using fictional techniques to tell essentially true stories. The second consisted of literary forgeries, which Borges initially passed off as translations of passages from famous but seldom-read works. In the following years, he served as a literary adviser for the publishing house Emecé Editores and wrote weekly columns for El Hogar, which appeared from 1936 to 1939. Emecé Editores is an Argentine publishing house currently a subsidiary of Grupo Planeta.

In 1937, friends of Borges found him working at the Miguel Cané branch of the Buenos Aires Municipal Library as a first assistant. His fellow employees forbade Borges from cataloging more than 100 books per day, a task which would take him about one hour. The rest of his time he spent in the basement of the library, writing articles and short stories.

Borges's Cosmopolitanism allowed him to free himself from the trap of local color. The varying genealogies of characters, settings, and themes in his stories such as "La muerte y la brújula" were Argentine without forcing them to be Argentine by pandering to his readers. In his essay "El escritor argentino y la tradición" Borges notes that the very absence of camels in the Koran was proof enough that it was an Arabian work, inferring that only someone trying to write an "Arab" work would purposefully include a camel. He uses this example to illustrate how his dialoguing with universal existential concerns was just as Argentine as writing about gauchos and tangos (both of which he also did).

Maturity

Borges' father died in 1938, a tragedy for Borges: father and son were very devoted to each other. It was in this year that Borges made his only visit to Australia, after being invited to give a series of lectures in Melbourne. Some have suggested that the domed reading room of the city's State Library may have been an inspiration for the 'Library at Babel'. During Christmas Eve 1938, Borges suffered a severe head wound: during treatment, he nearly died of septicemia. Christmas Eve, December 24, is the day before Christmas Day, the celebrated birthday of Jesus. Sepsis is a serious medical condition characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state (called a Systemic inflammatory response syndrome or SIRS caused While recovering from the accident, he began tinkering with a new style of writing, for which he would become famous. The first story penned after his accident was Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote in May 1939. Pierre Menard Author of the Quixote (original Spanish title Pierre Menard autor del Quijote) is a Short story by Argentine In this story, he examined the relationship between father and son and the nature of authorship.

His first collection of short stories, El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (The Garden of Forking Paths) appeared in 1941, composed mostly of works previously published in Sur. "The Garden of Forking Paths" (original Spanish title "El Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan") is a 1941 Short story Though generally well received, El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan failed to garner for him the literary prizes many in his circle expected. Ocampo dedicated a large portion of the July 1941 issue of Sur to a "Reparation for Borges"; numerous leading writers and critics from Argentina and throughout the Spanish-speaking world contributed writings to the "reparation" project.

When Juan Perón became President in 1946, Borges was dismissed, and "promoted" to the position of poultry inspector for the Buenos Aires municipal market (he immediately resigned; he always referred to the title of the post he never filled as "Poultry and Rabbit Inspector"). Juan Domingo Perón (October 8 1895 &ndash July 1 1974 was an Argentine Colonel and Politician, elected three times as President of Argentina His offenses against the Peronistas up to that time had apparently consisted of little more than adding his signature to pro-democratic petitions, but shortly after his resignation he addressed the Argentine Society of Letters saying, in his characteristic style, "Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy. Peronism (Peronismo or Justicialism (Spanish Justicialismo) is an Argentine political movement based on the ideas and programs associated with Democracy is a form of government in which the supreme power is held completely by the people under a free electoral system "

Without a job, his vision beginning to fade due to hereditary retinal detachment,[4] and unable to fully support himself as a writer, Borges began a new career as a public lecturer. Despite a certain degree of political persecution, he was reasonably successful, and became an increasingly public figure, obtaining appointments as President of the Argentine Society of Writers, and as Professor of English and American Literature at the Argentine Association of English Culture. Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual/group by another group His short story Emma Zunz was turned into a film (under the name of Días de odio (English title: Days of Wrath), directed in 1954, by the Argentine director Leopoldo Torre Nilsson). Leopoldo Torre Nilsson ( 5 May 1924 – 8 September 1978) also known as Leo Towers and by his nickname Babsy, was Around this time, Borges also began writing screenplays.

In 1955, and after the initiative of Ocampo, the new anti-Peronist military government appointed him head of the National Library. Victoria Ocampo ( Buenos Aires, April 7, 1890 - Buenos Aires January 27, 1979) was an Argentine intellectual described The Revolución Libertadora ( Spanish, Liberating Revolution) was a military uprising that ended the second presidential term of [5] By that time, he had become completely blind, like one of his best known predecessors, Paul Groussac (for whom Borges wrote an obituary). Paul-François Groussac ( February 15, 1848 - June 27, 1929) was a French -born Argentine writer literary critic Neither coincidence nor the irony escaped Borges and he commented on them in his work:

Nadie rebaje a lágrima o reproche
esta declaración de la maestría
de Dios, que con magnífica ironía
me dio a la vez los libros y la noche.
Let neither tear nor reproach besmirch
this declaration of the mastery
of God who, with magnificent irony,
granted me both the gift of books and the night.

The following year he received the National Prize for Literature from the University of Cuyo, the first of many honorary doctorates. The National University of Cuyo (Castilian Universidad Nacional de Cuyo UNCuyo is the largest center of higher education in the province of Mendoza, From 1956 to 1970, Borges also held a position as a professor of literature at the University of Buenos Aires, while frequently holding temporary appointments at other universities. The University of Buenos Aires (in Spanish Universidad de Buenos Aires - ( UBA) is the largest University in Argentina, founded on August

His eyesight deteriorating, he relied increasingly on his mother's help. When he was not able to read and write anymore (he never learned the Braille system), his mother, to whom he had always been devoted, became his personal secretary. The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write

International renown

A story of Borges was first translated into English in the August 1948 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine; the story was "The Garden of Forking Paths," the translator Anthony Boucher. Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine is a monthly Digest size fiction magazine specializing in Crime fiction, particularly Detective fiction. "The Garden of Forking Paths" (original Spanish title "El Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan") is a 1941 Short story Anthony Boucher (born William Anthony Parker White) ( August 21, 1911 – April 29, 1968) was an American Science fiction [6] Though several other Borges translations appeared in literary magazines and anthologies during the 1950s,[7] his international fame dates from the early 1960s. In 1961, he received the first International Publishers' Prize Prix Formentor, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989 was an Irish Writer, Dramatist and poet While Beckett was well-known and respected in the English-speaking world, and Borges at this time remained unknown and untranslated, English-speaking readers became curious about the other recipient of the prize. The Italian government named Borges Commendatore; and the University of Texas at Austin appointed him for one year to the Tinker chair. This led to his first lecture tour in the United States. The first translations of his work into English followed in 1962, with lecture tours in Europe, and in subsequent years the Andean region of South America. The Andes form the world's longest exposed Mountain range. They lie as a continuous chain of highland along the western coast of South America. South America is a Continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a In 1965, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom appointed him O.B.E. In 1980 he was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca; numerous other honors were to accumulate over the years, such as the French Legion of Honour in 1983, the Cervantes Prize, and even a Special Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America, "for distinguished contribution to the mystery genre". For the ship see RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Context States headed by Elizabeth II The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British Order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Prix mondial Cino Del Duca (Cino Del Duca World Prize is a major international Literary award established in 1969 in France by Simone Del Duca (1912-2004 Premio Miguel de Cervantes (the Miguel de Cervantes Prize is awarded annually to honor the lifetime achievement of an outstanding writer in the Spanish language. The Edgar Allan Poe Awards (popularly called the Edgars) named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America. Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers based in New York. [8]

In 1967, Borges began a five-year period of collaboration with the American translator Norman Thomas di Giovanni, thanks to whom he became better known in the English-speaking world. Norman Thomas di Giovanni (born 1933 Newton Massachusetts) is an American -born editor and Translator known for his collaboration with He also continued to publish books, among them El libro de los seres imaginarios (The Book of Imaginary Beings, (1967, co-written with Margarita Guerrero), El informe de Brodie (Dr. Jorge Luis Borges wrote and edited the Book of Imaginary Beings in 1957 as the original Spanish Manual de zoología fantástica, or Handbook of Fantastic Brodie's Report, 1970), and El libro de arena (The Book of Sand, 1975). "The Book of Sand" (original Spanish title "El libro de arena") is a 1975 short story by Jorge Luis Borges. He also lectured prolifically. Many of these lectures were anthologized in volumes such as Siete noches (Seven Nights) and Nueve ensayos dantescos (Nine Dantesque Essays).

Criticism

Borges's change in style from criollismo to a more cosmopolitan style brought him much criticism from journals such as Contorno, a left of center, Sartre-influenced publication founded by the Viñas brothers (Ismael & David), Noé Jitrik, Adolfo Prieto, and other intellectuals. Noé Jitrik was born in Argentina in 1928 and is one of Latin America 's foremost literary critics Contorno "met with wide approval among the youth [. . . ] for taking the older writers of the country to task on account of [their] presumed inauthenticity and their legacy of formal experimentation at the expense of responsibility and seriousness in the face of society's problems" (Katra:1988:56). [9]

Borges and Eduardo Mallea were criticized for being "doctors of technique"; their writing presumably "lacked substance due to their lack of interaction with the reality [. . . ] that they inhabited", an existential critique of their refusal to embrace existence and reality in their artwork. [10]

Later personal life

When Perón returned from exile and was re-elected president in 1973, Borges immediately resigned as director of the National Library. In 1967 Borges married the recently-widowed Elsa Astete Millán. It was commonly believed that his mother, who was 90, and anticipating her own death, wanted to find someone to care for her blind son. The marriage lasted less than three years. NOTICE TO WOULD-BE ROMEOS ************** After a legal separation, Borges moved back in with his mother, with whom he lived until her death at age 99. [11] Thereafter, he lived alone in the small flat he had shared with her, cared for by Fanny, their housekeeper of many decades. [12]

After 1975, the year his mother died, Borges began to travel all over the world, up to the time of his death. He was often accompanied in these travels by his personal assistant María Kodama, an Argentine woman of Japanese and German ancestry. María Kodama ( Buenos Aires, 1945 -) is an Argentine writer translator and literature professor

Jorge Luis Borges died of liver cancer in 1986 in Geneva and is buried in the Cimetière des Rois (Plainpalais). Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC also called hepatoma) is a primary malignancy (cancer of the Liver. The Cimetière des Rois (French for Cemetery of Kings) is a Cemetery in Geneva, Switzerland, where people such as John Calvin A few months before his death, via an attorney in Paraguay, he married Kodama. Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay ( Spanish: República del Paraguay; Guaraní: Tetã Paraguái) is one of the only After years of legal wrangling about the legality of the marriage, Kodama, as sole inheritor of a significant annual income, has control over his works. Her administration of his estate has bothered some scholars; she has been denounced by the French publisher Gallimard, by Le Nouvel Observateur, and by intellectuals such as Beatriz Sarlo, as an obstacle to the serious reading of Borges' works. Éditions Gallimard is one of the leading French Publishers of books Le Nouvel Observateur (often shorten to Le Nouvel Obs) is a weekly French Newsmagazine. Beatriz Sarlo is an Argentine literary and cultural critic She is also founding editor of the cultural journal Punto de Vista ("Point of View" [13]

J. M. Coetzee said of Borges: "He more than anyone renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish American novelists. "

Nobel Prize omission

Though reputed to be a perennial contender, Borges was never awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel Prize in Literature (Nobelpriset i litteratur is awarded annually since 1901 to an author from any country who has in the words from the will of Alfred Especially in the 1980s, when he was clearly growing old and infirm, this became a glaring omission. It was speculated that he was considered unfit to receive the award for his political views. [14]

Although this political stance stemmed from his self-described "Anarcho-Pacifism", it placed him in the distinguished company of Nobel Prize in Literature non-winners, a group including, among others, Graham Greene, James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, Marcel Proust, Leo Tolstoy and Alfonso Reyes. Anarchism is a Political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which support the elimination of all compulsory Government, i Henry Graham Greene OM, CH (2 October 1904 &ndash 3 April 1991 was an English writer best known as a novelist but who also produced Short stories James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 &ndash 13 January 1941 was an Irish expatriate writer widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the This page is about the novelist For his father the politician see Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov. Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (maʁsɛl pʁust (10 July 1871 &ndash 18 November 1922 was a French Novelist Essayist and Critic Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy ( –) (Лев Никола́евич Толсто́й, was a Russian Writer widely regarded For the professional basketball player see Alfonso Reyes (basketball Alfonso Reyes Ochoa ( 17 May 1889, Monterrey [15] He did, however, receive the Jerusalem Prize in 1971, awarded to writers who deal with themes of human freedom and society. The Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society is a biennial Literary award given to Writers whose work has dealt with themes of human freedom society

Other works

In addition to his short stories for which he is most famous, Borges also wrote poetry, essays, several screenplays, and a considerable volume of literary criticism, prologues, and reviews, edited numerous anthologies, and was a prominent translator of English-, French- and German-language literature into Spanish (and of Old English and Norse works as well). English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age His blindness (which, like his father's, developed in adulthood) strongly influenced his later writing. Paramount among his intellectual interests are elements of mythology, mathematics, theology, and, as a personal integration of these, Borges' sense of literature as recreation — all of these disciplines are sometimes treated as a writer's playthings and at other times treated very seriously.

Since Borges lived through most of the 20th century, he was rooted in the Modernist period of culture and literature, especially Symbolism. Modernism describes an array of Cultural movements rooted in the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century Art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts His fiction is profoundly learnéd, and always concise. Like his contemporary Vladimir Nabokov and the older James Joyce, he combined an interest in his native land with far broader perspectives. This page is about the novelist For his father the politician see Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 &ndash 13 January 1941 was an Irish expatriate writer widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the He also shared their multilingualism and their playfulness with language, but while Nabokov and Joyce tended--as their lives went on--toward progressively larger works, Borges remained a miniaturist. Also in contrast to Joyce and Nabokov, Borges' work progressed away from what he referred to as "the baroque," while theirs moved towards it: Borges' later writing style is far more transparent and naturalistic than his earlier works.

Many of his most popular stories concern the nature of time, infinity, mirrors, labyrinths, reality, philosophy, and identity. Infinity (symbolically represented with ∞) comes from the Latin infinitas or "unboundedness A mirror is an object with a surface that has good Specular reflection; that is it is smooth enough to form an Image. In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth ( Greek λαβύρινθος labyrinthos) was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Reality, in everyday usage means "the state of things as they actually exist" A number of stories focus on fantastic themes, such as a library containing every possible 410-page text ("The Library of Babel"), a man who forgets nothing he experiences ("Funes, the Memorious"), an artifact through which the user can see everything in the universe ("The Aleph"), and a year of time standing still, given to a man standing before a firing squad ("The Secret Miracle"). " The Library of Babel " ( is a Short story by Argentine author and Librarian Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986 conceiving of a Universe Eidetic memory, photographic memory, or total recall is the ability to recall Images Sounds, or objects in Memory "Funes the Memorious" (original Spanish title "Funes el memorioso") is a Fantasy Short story by Argentine " The Aleph " is a Short story by the Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. " The Secret Miracle " is a Short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. The same Borges told more and less realistic stories of South American life, stories of folk heroes, streetfighters, soldiers, gauchos, detectives, historical figures. Gaucho ( gaúcho in Portuguese, "gaucho" in Spanish) is a term commonly used to describe residents of the South American Pampas He mixed the real and the fantastic: fact with fiction. On several occasions, especially early in his career, these mixtures sometimes crossed the line into the realm of hoax or literary forgery. [16]

Borges' abundant nonfiction includes astute film and book reviews, short biographies, and longer philosophical musings on topics such as the nature of dialogue, language, and thought, and the relationships between them. In this respect, and regarding Borges' personal pantheon, he considered the Mexican essayist of similar topics Alfonso Reyes "the best prose-writer in the Spanish language of any time. For the professional basketball player see Alfonso Reyes (basketball Alfonso Reyes Ochoa ( 17 May 1889, Monterrey " (In: Siete Noches, p. 156). His non-fiction also explores many of the themes found in his fiction. Essays such as "The History of the Tango" or his writings on the epic poem Martín Fierro explore specifically Argentine themes, such as the identity of the Argentine people and of various Argentine subcultures. Tango is a Musical genre and its associated dance forms that originated in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay and This article deals with Hernández's poem For other things named after it see Martín Fierro (disambiguation Martín Fierro is For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. His interest in fantasy, philosophy, and the art of translation are evident in articles such as "The Translators of The Thousand and One Nights", while The Book of Imaginary Beings is a thoroughly (and obscurely) researched bestiary of mythical creatures, in the preface of which Borges wrote, "There is a kind of lazy pleasure in useless and out-of-the-way erudition. Jorge Luis Borges wrote and edited the Book of Imaginary Beings in 1957 as the original Spanish Manual de zoología fantástica, or Handbook of Fantastic A bestiary, or Bestiarum vocabulum is a compendium of beasts Bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals A legendary creature is a mythological or folkloric creature (often known as "fabulous creatures" in historical literature " Borges' interest in fantasy was shared by Adolfo Bioy Casares, with whom Borges coauthored several collections of tales between 1942 and 1967, sometimes under different pseudonyms including H. Bustos Domecq. Adolfo Bioy Casares (September 15 1914 – March 8 1999 was an Argentine fiction writer H (Honorio) is a pseudonym used for several collaborative works by the Argentine writers Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares.

Borges composed poetry throughout his life. As his eyesight waned (it came and went, with a struggle between advancing age and advances in eye surgery), he increasingly focused on writing poetry, since he could memorize an entire work in progress. His poems embrace the same wide range of interests as his fiction, along with issues that emerge in his critical works and translations, and from more personal musings. This breadth of interest can be found in his fiction, nonfiction, and poems. For example, his interest in philosophical idealism is reflected in the fictional world of Tlön in "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", in his essay "A New Refutation of Time", and in his poem "Things. In Western civilization, Idealism is the philosophy which maintains that the Ultimate nature of reality is ideal or based upon ideas values essences The so-called Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius is a Short story by the 20th century Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. "A New Refutation of Time" is an essay by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges in which he argues that the negations of idealism may be extended to time " Similarly, a common thread runs through his story "The Circular Ruins" and his poem "El Golem" ("The Golem"). "The Circular Ruins" (original Spanish title "Las ruinas circulares") is a Fantasy Short story by Argentine writer " El Golem " is a poem by Jorge Luis Borges, part of the 1964 book El otro el mismo ( The other the self)

As already mentioned, Borges was notable as a translator. Translation is the interpreting of the meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an equivalent text likewise called a " translation He translated Oscar Wilde's story The Happy Prince into Spanish when he was nine, perhaps an early indication of his literary talent. The Happy Prince and Other Tales (also sometimes called The Happy Prince and Other Stories) is an 1888 collection of stories for children by Oscar At the end of his life he produced a Spanish-language version of the Prose Edda. The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda ( Snorra Edda) or simply Edda, is an He also translated (while simultaneously subtly transforming) the works of, among others, Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, Hermann Hesse, Rudyard Kipling, Herman Melville, André Gide, William Faulkner, Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf, Sir Thomas Browne, and G. K. Chesterton. Edgar Allan Poe (January 19 1809 – October 7 1849 was an American poet, short-story Writer, editor and Literary critic, Hermann Hesse (ˈhɛʀman ˈhɛsə ( 2 July, 1877 — 9 August, 1962) was a German - Swiss poet novelist and painter Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936 was an English Author and poet Herman Melville (August 1 1819 &ndash September 28 1891 was an American novelist Short story writer Essayist and poet William Faulkner (born William Cuthbert Falkner) ( September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American Author Walter Whitman (May 31 1819 &ndash March 26 1892 was an American poet, Essayist journalist, and humanist. (Adeline Virginia Woolf (née Stephen; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941 was an English Novelist and Essayist, regarded as one of the foremost Sir Thomas Browne ( October 19, 1605 &ndash October 19, 1682) was an English author of varied works which disclose his wide learning Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936 was an influential English writer of the early 20th century In a number of essays and lectures, Borges assessed the art of translation, and articulated his own view at the same time. He held the view that a translation may improve upon the original, may even be unfaithful to it, and that alternative and potentially contradictory renderings of the same work can be equally valid.

Borges also employed two very unusual literary forms: the literary forgery and the review of an imaginary work. Both constitute a form of modern pseudo-epigrapha. Pseudepigrapha (from Ancient Greek ψευδής

Borges' best-known set of literary forgeries date from his early work as a translator and literary critic with a regular column in the Argentine magazine El Hogar. Along with publishing numerous legitimate translations, he also published original works after the style of the likes of Emanuel Swedenborg or The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, originally passing them off as translations of things he had come upon in his reading. (born Emanuel Swedberg; February 8 1688–March 29 1772 was a Swedish Scientist, Philosopher, Christian mystic, and Theologian Several of these are gathered in the Universal History of Infamy. He continued this pattern of literary forgery at several points in his career, for example sneaking three short, falsely attributed pieces into his otherwise legitimate and carefully researched anthology El matrero.

At times, confronted with an idea for a work that bordered on the conceptual, rather than write a piece that fulfilled the concept, he wrote a review of a nonexistent work, as if it had already been created by some other person. The most famous example of this is "Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote", which imagines a twentieth-century Frenchman who tries to write Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote verbatim---not by having memorized Cervantes' work, but as an "original" narrative of his own invention. Pierre Menard Author of the Quixote (original Spanish title Pierre Menard autor del Quijote) is a Short story by Argentine Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( in modern Spanish; September 29, 1547 &ndash April 22, 1616) was a Spanish Novelist Initially he tries to immerse himself in sixteenth-century Spain, but dismisses the method as too easy, instead trying to reach Don Quixote through his own experiences. He finally manages to (re)create "the ninth and thirty-eighth chapters of the first part of Don Quixote and a fragment of chapter twenty-two. " Borges' "review" of the work of the fictional Menard uses tongue-in-cheek comparisons to discuss the resonances that Don Quixote has picked up over the centuries since it was written, by way of overtly discussing how much "richer" Menard's work is than that of Cervantes, even though the actual words are exactly the same. es '''''Don Quixote''''' (, see spelling and pronunciation below fully titled es '''''El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha''''' ("The Ingenious Hidalgo Don

While Borges was certainly the great popularizer of the review of an imaginary work, it was not his own invention. Borges was already familiar with the idea from Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, a book-length review of a non-existent German transcendentalist philosophical work, and the biography of its equally non-existent author. Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881 was a Scottish essayist satirist and historian whose work was highly influential during the Victorian era. Thomas Carlyle 's major work Sartor Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in Literature, Religion, Culture, and Philosophy that emerged in New England in the A biography (from the Greek words bíos (βίος meaning "life" and gráphein (γράφειν meaning "to write" is an account This Craft of Verse (p. 104) records Borges as saying that in 1916 in Geneva he "discovered -- and was overwhelmed by -- Thomas Carlyle. I read Sartor Resartus, and I can recall many of its pages; I know them by heart. " In the introduction to his first published volume of fiction, The Garden of Forking Paths, Borges remarks, "It is a laborious madness and an impoverishing one, the madness of composing vast books -- setting out in five hundred pages an idea that can be perfectly related orally in five minutes. The better way to go about it is to pretend that those books already exist, and offer a summary, a commentary on them. " He then cites both Sartor Resartus and Samuel Butler's The Fair Haven, remarking, however, that "those works suffer under the imperfection that they themselves are books, and not a whit less tautological than the others. Samuel Butler ( December 4, 1835 - June 18, 1902 was an iconoclastic Victorian author who published a variety of works including the A more reasonable, more inept, and more lazy man, I have chosen to write notes on imaginary books. " [Collected Fictions, p. 67]

Borges as Argentine and as world citizen

Special two-Argentine pesos coin featuring Borges, 1999
Special two-Argentine pesos coin featuring Borges, 1999

Borges' work maintained a universal perspective that reflected a multi-ethnic Argentina, exposure from an early age to his father's substantial collection of world literature, and lifelong travel experience. The peso (originally established as the nuevo peso argentino or peso convertible) is the currency of Argentina. As a young man, he visited the frontier pampas where the boundaries of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil blurred, and lived and studied in Switzerland and Spain; in middle age he traveled through Argentina as a lecturer and, internationally, as a visiting professor; he continued to tour the world as he grew older, ending his life in Geneva where he had attended high school (he never went to university). Laguna de Gomezjpg|thumb|left|240px|Lake Gomez near Junín in the heart of the Pampas grain belt Uruguay.(official full name in República Oriental del Uruguay;, Oriental Republic of Uruguay) is a country located in the southeastern part of South America |utc_offset = -2 to -4 |time_zone_DST = BRST |utc_offset_DST = -2 to -5 |cctld Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Geneva (Genève is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and is the most populous city of Romandy (the French -speaking Drawing on influences of many times and places, Borges' work belittled nationalism and racism. An Argentinian, Borges set some of his historical fiction in Uruguay. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. Uruguay.(official full name in República Oriental del Uruguay;, Oriental Republic of Uruguay) is a country located in the southeastern part of South America He grew acquainted with the literature from Argentine, Spanish, North American, English, French, German, Italian, and Northern European/Icelandic sources, including those of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age He also read many translations of Near Eastern and Far Eastern works. B Syria - Belka Woman from Damascus Arab from Baghdadjpg|thumb|Inhabitants of the Near East late nineteenth century The Far East is a term often used by people in the Western world to refer to the countries of East Asia. The universalism that made him interested in world literature reflected an attitude that was not congruent with the Perón government's extreme nationalism. Juan Domingo Perón (October 8 1895 &ndash July 1 1974 was an Argentine Colonel and Politician, elected three times as President of Argentina The term nationalism can refer to an Ideology, a sentiment, a form of Culture, or a Social movement that focuses on the Nation That government's meddling with Borges' job fueled his skepticism of government (he labeled himself a Spencerian anarchist in the blurb of Atlas). Herbert Spencer ( April 27, 1820 – December 8, 1903) was an English Philosopher; prominent classical liberal Anarchism is a Political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which support the elimination of all compulsory Government, i When extreme Argentine nationalists sympathetic to the Nazis asserted Borges was Jewish (the implication being that his Argentine identity was inadequate), Borges responded in "Yo Judío" ("I, a Jew"), where he said, while he would be proud to be a Jew, he presented his actual Christian genealogy, along with a backhanded reminder that any "pure" Castilian just might likely have a Jew in their ancestry, stemming from a millennium back. Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Judaism (from the Greek Ioudaïsmos, derived from the Hebrew יהודה Yehudah, " Judah " in Hebrew יַהֲדוּת Yahedut Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings Genealogy (from Greek: el γενεά el-Latn genea, "descent" and el λόγος el-Latn logos, "knowledge" is the study of

Multicultural influences on Borges' writing

Borges' Argentina is a multi-ethnic country, and Buenos Aires, the capital, a cosmopolitan city. At the time of Argentine independence in 1816, the population was predominantly criollo, which in Argentine usage generally means people of Spanish ancestry, although it can allow for a small admixture of other origins. The Argentine national identity diversified, forming over a period of decades after the Argentine Declaration of Independence. The Independence of Argentina was declared on July 9 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán. During that period substantial immigration came from Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Russia, Syria and Lebanon (then parts of the Ottoman Empire), the United Kingdom, Austria-Hungary, Portugal, Poland, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, North America, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, and China, with the Italians and Spanish forming the largest influx. The original inhabitants of Argentina were descendants of Asian peoples that crossed the Bering Land Bridge into North America and then over thousands Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Syria ( سوريّة or) officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic ar الجمهورية العربية السورية Lebanon (ˈlɛbənɒn Arabic: ar لبنان Lubnān) officially the Republic of Lebanon or Lebanese Republic (ar الجمهورية اللبنانية The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 ( Old Ottoman Turkish: دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation The Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croato-Slovene ie Serbo-Croatian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Slovene: Kraljevina Jugoslavija The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those The Kingdom of Denmark ( ˈd̥ænmɑɡ̊ (archaic ˈd̥anmɑːɡ̊ commonly known as Denmark, is a country in the Scandinavian region of northern Europe The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National The diversity of coexisting cultures characteristic of the Argentine lifestyles is especially pronounced in Six Problems for Don Isidoro Parodi, co-authored with Adolfo Bioy Casares, and in the unnamed multi-ethnic city that's the setting for "Death and the Compass", which may or may not be Buenos Aires. Adolfo Bioy Casares (September 15 1914 – March 8 1999 was an Argentine fiction writer "Death and the Compass" (original Spanish title "La muerte y la brújula") is a Short story by Argentine writer and poet Borges' writing is also steeped by influences and informed by scholarship of Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, and Jewish faiths, including mainline religious figures, heretics, and mystics. Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation. Judaism (from the Greek Ioudaïsmos, derived from the Hebrew יהודה Yehudah, " Judah " in Hebrew יַהֲדוּת Yahedut For more examples, see the sections below on International themes in Borges and Religious themes in Borges.

Borges as specialist in the history, culture, and literature of Argentina

If Borges often focused on universal themes, he no less composed a substantial body of literature on themes from Argentine folklore, history, and current concerns. Borges' first book, the poetry collection Fervor de Buenos Aires (Passion for Buenos Aires), appeared in 1923. Considering Borges' thorough attention to all things Argentine — ranging from Argentine culture ("History of the Tango"; "Inscriptions on Horse Wagons"), folklore ("Juan Muraña", "Night of the Gifts"), literature ("The Argentine Writer and Tradition", "Almafuerte"; "Evaristo Carriego") and current concerns ("Celebration of The Monster", "Hurry, Hurry", "The Mountebank", "Pedro Salvadores") — it is ironic indeed that ultra-nationalists would have questioned his Argentine identity. Evaristo Carriego ( Paraná, May 7, 1883 - † Buenos Aires, October 13, 1912) was an Argentine Poet

Borges' interest in Argentine themes reflects in part the inspiration of his family tree. Borges had an English paternal grandmother who, around 1870, married the criollo Francisco Borges, a man with a military command and a historic role in the civil wars in what is now Argentina and Uruguay. Uruguay.(official full name in República Oriental del Uruguay;, Oriental Republic of Uruguay) is a country located in the southeastern part of South America Spurred by pride in his family's heritage, Borges often used those civil wars as settings in fiction and quasi-fiction (for example, "The Life of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz," "The Dead Man," "Avelino Arredondo") as well as poetry ("General Quiroga Rides to His Death in a Carriage"). Borges' maternal great-grandfather, Manuel Isidoro Suárez , was another military hero, whom Borges immortalized in the poem "A Page to Commemorate Colonel Suárez, Victor at Junín. Manuel Isidoro Suárez (1799 - 1846 was an Argentine colonel who commanded Peruvian and Colombian cavalry troops in their wars of independence " The city of Coronel Suárez in the south of Buenos Aires Province is named after him. Coronel Suárez is a town in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Buenos Aires Province (ˈbwenos ˈaiɾes Spanish: Provincia de Buenos Aires is the most populated province of Argentina.

Borges, Martín Fierro, and tradition

Borges contributed to a few avant garde publications in the early 1920s, including one called Martín Fierro, named after the major work of 19th century Argentine literature, Martín Fierro, a gauchesque poem by José Hernández, published in two parts, in 1872 and 1880. Martín Fierro was an Argentine literary magazine which appeared from February 1924 to 1927 For the astronaut see Jose Hernandez, for the Baseball player see José Hernández. Initially, along with other young writers of his generation, Borges rallied around the fictional Martín Fierro as the symbol of a characteristic Argentine sensibility, not tied to European values. As Borges matured, he came to a more nuanced attitude toward the poem. Hernández's central character, Martín Fierro, is a gaucho, a free, poor, pampas-dweller, who is illegally drafted to serve at a border fort to defend against the Indians; he ultimately deserts and becomes a gaucho matrero, the Argentine equivalent of a North American western outlaw. Laguna de Gomezjpg|thumb|left|240px|Lake Gomez near Junín in the heart of the Pampas grain belt Borges' 1953 book of essays on the poem, El "Martín Fierro", separates his great admiration for the aesthetic virtues of the work from his rather mixed opinion of the moral virtues of its protagonist. Like most Argentines, Jorge Luis Borges was a great admirer of José Hernández 's poem Martín Fierro. He uses the occasion to tweak the noses of arch-nationalist interpreters of the poem, but disdains those (such as Eleuterio Tiscornia) whom he sees as failing to understand its specifically Argentine character.

In "The Argentine Writer and Tradition", Borges celebrates how Hernández expresses that character in the crucial scene in which Martín Fierro and El Moreno compete by improvising songs about universal themes such as time, night, and the sea. The scene clearly reflects the real-world gaucho tradition of payadas, improvised musical dialogues on philosophical themes — as distinct from the type of slang that Hernández uses in the main body of Martín Fierro. Borges points out that therefore, Hernández evidently knew the difference between actual gaucho tradition of composing poetry on universal themes, versus the "gauchesque" fashion among Buenos Aires literati. Borges goes on to deny the possibility that Argentine literature could distinguish itself by making reference to "local color", nor does it need to remain true to the heritage of the literature of Spain, nor to define itself as a rejection of the literature of its colonial founders, nor follow in the footsteps of European literature. He asserts that Argentine writers need to be free to define Argentine literature anew, writing about Argentina and the world from the point of view of someone who has inherited the whole of world literature.

Borges uses Martín Fierro and El Moreno's competition as a theme once again in "El Fin" ("The End"), a story that first appeared in his short story collection Artificios (1944). "El Fin" is a sort of mini-sequel or conclusion to Martín Fierro. In his prologue to Artificios, Borges says of "El Fin," "Everything in the story is implicit in a famous book [Martín Fierro] and I have been the first to decipher it, or at least, to declare it. "

Limits to universalism

To exaggerate Borges' universalism might be as much a mistake as the nationalists' questioning the validity of his Argentine identity. His writing was evidently more influenced by some literatures than others, reflecting in part the particular contents of his library his father had amassed, and the particular population composition of Argentina during his lifetime. A review of his work reveals far more influences from European and New World sources than Asian-Pacific or African ones. The New World is one of the names used for the non-Eurasian/non-African parts of the Earth specifically the Americas and Australia.

Few references to Africans or African-Americans appear in his work; rare mentions include an idiosyncratic inventory of the latter-day effects of the slave trade in "The Dread Redeemer Lazarus Morrell" and a number of sympathetic references to a person of African descent killed by the fictional outlaw Martin Fierro. African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa Indigenous Amerind sources are poorly represented, owing to the near-destruction of that population and culture in the Southern Cone region of South America; rare mentions include a captive Aztec priest, Tzinacán, in "The God's Script" and Amerinds who capture Argentines in "Story of the Warrior and the Captive" and "The Captive". For indigenous peoples in the United States other than Hawaii and Alaska see also Native Americans in the United States. Aztec is a term used to refer to certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who achieved political "Lo Gauchesco" (Gaucho culture, translates as "that which is Gauchesque"), has, however, a big presence throughout his work. Gauchos are the cowboys of Argentina, the men who herded the cattle and were generally of mixed blood (Spanish and indigenous) and have always been associated with the wild, indigenous and unruly elements of Argentine culture.

In contrast to his scholarship in Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist sources, Borges' view of Hinduism and Hindus seems to have been formed by peering through the sympathetic lens of the works of Rudyard Kipling, as in Borges' "The Approach to Al Mutasim". Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936 was an English Author and poet

Sexuality and sexual orientation

There has been discussion of Borges' attitudes to sex and women. Herbert J. Brant's essay "The Queer Use of Communal Women in Borges' 'El muerto' and 'La intrusa'", has argued that Borges employed women as intermediaries of male affection, allowing men to engage each other romantically without resorting to direct, homosexual contact. [17] For instance, the plot of La Intrusa was based on a true story of two friends, but Borges made their fictional counterparts brothers, excluding the possibility of a homosexual relationship. Borges dismissed these suggestions.

There are, however, instances in Borges writings of heterosexual love and attraction. The story "Ulrikke" from The Book of Sand tells a romantic tale of heterosexual desire, love, trust and sex. "Ulrikke" (original Spanish title "Ulrica") is a short story by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. "The Book of Sand" (original Spanish title "El libro de arena") is a 1975 short story by Jorge Luis Borges. The protagonist of "El muerto" clearly relishes and lusts after the "Splendid, contemptuous, red-haired woman" of Azevedo Bandeira. [18] Later he "sleeps with the woman with shining hair". [19] "El muerto" ("The Dead Man") contains two separate examples of definitive gaucho heterosexual lust.

James Woodall and Edwin Williamson have each written a biography of Borges, each of which is titled Borges, a Life. Their investigations of his actual relationships and his personal correspondence elaborate on the debate surrounding Borges' sexuality.

Bibliography

Filmography

References

  1. ^ Borges Center - Page title - The University of Iowa
  2. ^ Table of Contents and Excerpt, Borges, Other Inquisitions
  3. ^ de Man, Paul. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. "A Modern Master. " Jorge Luis Borges. Ed. Harold Bloom, New York: Chelsea House Pub. , 1986. 21-27.
  4. ^ Woodall, J: "The Man in Mirror of the Book, A Life of Luis Borges", pg xxx. Hodder and Stroughton 1996
  5. ^ (Spanish) Jorge Luis Borges, Galería de Directores, Biblioteca Nacional (Argentina). Accessed online 23 December 2006.
  6. ^ Anthony Boucher entry, online Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections.
  7. ^ Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions, Viking Penguin 1998, ISBN . (Translation and notes by Andrew Hurley. ) Editorial note on page 517.
  8. ^ Mystery Writers of America. Edgar Award Database. Retrieved September 24, 2007. Events 622 - Prophet Muhammad completes his hegira from Mecca to Medina. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century.
  9. ^ Katra, William H. Contorno: Literary Engagement in Post-Perónist Argentina. Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1988.
  10. ^ Katra p. 57
  11. ^ Norman Thomas Di Giovanni, The Lessons of the Master
  12. ^ "Fanny", El Señor Borges
  13. ^ (Spanish) Octavi Martí, Kodama frente a Borges, El País (Madrid), Edición Impresa, 16 August 2006. Abstract online; full text accessible online by subscription only.
  14. ^ James M. Markham: Briton Wins the Nobel Literature Prize, The New York Times 7 October 1983
  15. ^ Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - books: Where did Philip Roth's Nobel prize get to?
  16. ^ His imitations of Swedenborg and others were originally passed off as translations, in his literary column in Crítica. For example, "El Teólogo" was originally published with the note "Lo anterior. . . es obra de Manuel Swedenborg, eminente ingeniero y hombre de ciencia, que durante 27 años estuvo en comercio lúcido y familiar con el otro mundo. " ("The preceding. . . is the work of Emanuel Swedenborg, eminent engineer and man of science, who during 27 years was in lucid and familiar commerce with the other world. ") Bibliografía cronológica de la obra de Jorge Luis Borges ("Chronological bibliography of the work of Jorge Luis Borges"), Borges Center, University of Iowa. Accessed online 7 November 2006. Events 1492 - The Ensisheim Meteorite the oldest Meteorite with a known date of impact strikes the Earth around noon in a Wheat Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.
  17. ^ Herbert J. Brant, The Queer Use of Communal Women in Borges' "El muerto" and "La intrusa", paper presented at XIX Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Congress held in Washington DC in September, 1995.
  18. ^ Andrew Hurley Jorge Luis Borges: Collected Fictions. Andrew Hurley is primarily known as an English translator of Spanish literature regarding a variety of authors especially work of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges New York: Penguin, 1998. 197.
  19. ^ ibid. 200

Further reading

External links

Labyrinths Published by [[New Directions)) in 1967 and then re-issued in 2007

Persondata
NAME Borges, Jorge Luis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES JLB (initials)
SHORT DESCRIPTION Argentine writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1899(1899-08-24)
PLACE OF BIRTH Buenos Aires, Argentina
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1986
PLACE OF DEATH Geneva, Switzerland

Events 49 BC - Julius Caesar 's General Gaius Scribonius Curio is defeated in the Second Battle of the Bagradas River Year 1899 ( MDCCCXCIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Buenos Aires is the Capital and largest city of Argentina. It is geographically located on the southern shore of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. Events 1276 - While taking exile in Fuzhou in southern China, away from the advancing Mongol invaders, the remnants of the Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) Geneva (Genève is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and is the most populous city of Romandy (the French -speaking Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation
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