Jorge Luis Borges (1899 - 1986) was an Argentine writer, poet, essayist and translator whose compressed, erudite short fiction became one of the most influential bodies of work in modern literature. [1] Collections such as Ficciones and El Aleph introduced the recurring images of labyrinths, mirrors, infinite libraries and forking time that are now associated with his name. [2] He shared the Prix Formentor in 1961 and received the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the highest honour in Spanish-language letters. [3]
Early life and education
Borges was born in Buenos Aires on 24 August 1899 into a family with English on his father's side, and he grew up bilingual, reading widely in his father's English library. In 1914 the family travelled to Europe and was stranded there by the First World War; Borges completed his secondary education at the Collège Calvin in Geneva and learned French, German and Latin. [1]
After a period in Spain, where he associated with the avant-garde Ultraist poets, he returned to Buenos Aires in 1921 and published his first collection of poems, Fervor de Buenos Aires, in 1923. Through the 1920s and 1930s he worked as a poet, essayist and literary journalist, editing and contributing to Argentine reviews. [2]
The short fiction
Borges turned decisively to narrative in the late 1930s, producing the stories that made his reputation. Ficciones (1944) and El Aleph (1949) collected pieces including "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", "The Library of Babel", "The Garden of Forking Paths", "Funes the Memorious" and "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote". [2]
These texts are typically brief, written in a precise and restrained prose, and framed as reviews, footnotes or reports on imaginary books. They treat philosophical problems of infinity, identity, time and authorship as material for narrative, and frequently invent scholarly apparatus for works that do not exist. [3]
Career, politics and blindness
Borges worked for years as a municipal librarian. Having publicly opposed the government of Juan Perón, he was removed from that post in 1946 and was appointed director of the National Library of Argentina after Perón's fall in 1955, a position he held until 1973; he also taught English literature at the University of Buenos Aires. [1]
An inherited condition progressively destroyed his sight, and he was effectively blind from around the time he took up the National Library directorship. He continued to compose by dictation, returning increasingly to poetry and to short, formally strict verse. His later political statements, including expressions of support for military governments in Argentina and Chile, drew criticism and were subsequently reconsidered by Borges himself. [2]
Recognition and later years
International recognition came with the Prix Formentor, shared with Samuel Beckett in 1961, after which his work was widely translated. Later honours included the Jerusalem Prize, the Balzan Prize, the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca and honorary doctorates from the Sorbonne and several Latin American universities. [3]
Borges spent his final months in Geneva, the city of his schooling, and died there on 14 June 1986. He was buried in the Cimetière des Rois. [1]
Legacy
Borges is regarded as a central figure in the internationalisation of Latin American writing and a decisive influence on postmodern fiction, magic realism and literary theory. [2] Writers from Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco to later generations of novelists have acknowledged his example, and terms drawn from his stories, including the Borgesian labyrinth and the infinite library, have passed into general critical use.
