Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , best known as
Jorge Luis Borges, was an Argentine writer and poet born in
Buenos AiresBuenos Aires is the capital, and largest city, of Argentina, currently the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the eastern shore of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
. In 1914, his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school and traveled to Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in Surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. Borges was fluent in several languages. He was a target of political persecution during the Peron regime.
Due to a hereditary condition, Borges became blind in his late fifties. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library (
Biblioteca Nacional) and professor of Literature at the
University of Buenos AiresThe University of Buenos Aires is the largest university in Argentina and the largest university by enrollment in Latin America, surpassing both the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Universidade Estácio de Sá of Brazil...
. In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first International Publishers' Prize
Prix Formentor. His work was translated and published widely in the United States and in Europe. He died in
GenevaGeneva, is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie...
, Switzerland, in 1986.
J. M. CoetzeeJohn Maxwell Coetzee is an author and academic from South Africa. He is now an Australian citizen and lives in South Australia...
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."
Early life and education
Jorge Luis Borges was born to an educated middle-class family. Borges's mother, Leonor Acevedo Suárez, came from a traditional
UruguayUruguay , is a country located in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.46 million people, of whom 1.1 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area. An estimated 88–94% of the population are of mostly European and/or mixed descent.Uruguay's only land border is...
an family. His 1929 book
Cuaderno San Martín included a poem "Isidoro Acevedo," commemorating his maternal grandfather, Isidoro de Acevedo Laprida, a soldier of the
Buenos AiresBuenos Aires is the capital, and largest city, of Argentina, currently the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the eastern shore of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
Army who stood against dictator
Juan Manuel de RosasJuan Manuel de Rosas , was a conservative Argentine politician who governed the Buenos Aires Province from 1829 to 1832 and again, from 1835 to 1852...
. A descendant of the Argentine lawyer and politician
Francisco Narciso de LapridaFrancisco Narciso de Laprida was an Argentine lawyer and politician. He was a deputy for San Juan at the Congress of Tucumán, and president of it on July 9 1816, when the Declaration of Independence of Argentina took place.Laprida started his studies at the Real Colegio de San Carlos in Buenos...
, Acevedo fought in the battles of
CepedaThe Battle of Cepeda of 1859 took place on October 23 of that year in Cañada de Cepeda, Santa Fe, Argentina, and in which Federal Justo José de Urquiza defeated Unitarian Bartolomé Mitre....
in 1859,
PavónThe Battle of Pavón was a key battle of the Argentina civil wars fought in Pavón, in Santa Fé Province, Argentina, on September 17, 1861, between the Army of Buenos Aires, commanded by Bartolomé Mitre, and the National Army, commanded by Justo José de Urquiza....
in 1861, and
Los CorralesThe Battle of Los Corrales took place in Parque Patricios, Buenos Aires, Argentina, on June 21, 1880, and confronted the side led by Carlos Tejedor, governor of Buenos Aires, against the National Army led by president Nicolás Avellaneda....
in 1880. Isidoro de Acevedo Laprida died of pulmonary congestion in the house where his grandson Jorge Luis Borges was born.
Borges's father, Jorge Guillermo Borges Haslam, was a
lawyerA lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain stability, and deliver...
and
psychologyPsychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the systematic, and sometimes scientific, study of human or animal mental functions and behavior...
teacher with literary aspirations. ("...he tried to become a writer and failed in the attempt," Borges once said, "...[but] composed some very good
sonnetThe sonnet is one of the poetic forms that can be found in lyric poetry from Europe.The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song". By the thirteenth century, it had come to signify a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme...
s"). His father was part Spanish, part
PortugueseThe Portuguese people are the ethnic group or nation native to the country of Portugal, in the far west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe...
, and half
EnglishThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity as a people is of early medieval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn....
; his father's mother was English and maintained a strong spirit of English culture in Borges's home. In this home, both Spanish and English were spoken. From earliest childhood Borges was bilingual, reading Shakespeare in English at the age of 12. The family lived in a large house equipped with an extensive English library of over one thousand volumes. Borges would later remark that "if I were asked to name the chief event in my life, I should say my father's library." They were in comfortable circumstances; but not being wealthy enough to live in downtown Buenos Aires, they resided in Palermo, then a poorer suburb of the city.
His father was forced to give up practicing law due to the failing eyesight that would eventually afflict his son. In 1914, the family moved to
GenevaGeneva, is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie...
, Switzerland. Borges senior was treated by a Geneva eye specialist, while his son and daughter
NorahNorah Borges was an artist and is the sister of the writer Jorge Luis Borges. Her original name was Leonor Fanny Borges, but her brother changed her name to "Norah." She made illustrations for her brother's books, also for Victoria Ocampo and Adolfo Bioy Casares....
attended school, where Borges junior learned French and taught himself German. He received his
baccalauréatThe baccalauréat , often known in France colloquially as le bac, is an academic qualification which French and international students take at the end of the lycée . It was invented under Napoleon I in 1808...
from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The Borges family decided that, due to political unrest in Argentina, they would remain in Switzerland. This lasted until 1921 when, after
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, the family spent three years living in various cities:
LuganoLugano is a town in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
(Switzerland),
BarcelonaBarcelona is the capital, most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008. It is the 11th-most populous municipality in the European Union and sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris,...
, Majorca,
SevilleSeville is the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level. The inhabitants of the city are known as Sevillanos or...
, and
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. It is the third-most populous municipality in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-most populous city by urban area in the European Union after Paris and London.The city is located on the river...
.
At that time Borges discovered the writing of
Arthur SchopenhauerArthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his atheistic pessimism and philosophical clarity...
and
Gustav MeyrinkGustav Meyrink was the Pseudonym of Gustav Meyer, an Austrian author, storyteller, dramatist, translator, banker and Buddhist, most famous for his novel The Golem.-Childhood:...
's
The Golem (1915) which were to become influential to his work. In Spain, Borges became a member of the
avant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English, to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
Ultraist literary movement (anti-Modernism, which ended in 1922 with the cessation of the journal
Ultra). His first poem, "Hymn to the Sea", written in the style of
Walt WhitmanWalter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
, was published in the magazine
Grecia. While in Spain, he met noted Spanish writers, including
Rafael Cansinos AssensRafael Cansinos Assens , born in Seville, was a Spanish poet, essayist, literary critic and translator. In the lectures he gave in 1967 at Harvard, Borges mentioned him as one of his masters, and expressed wonder to the fact that he has been forgotten.-Essays:*El candelabro de los siete brazos ,...
and
Ramón Gómez de la SernaRamón Gómez de la Serna was a Spanish writer, dramatist and avant-garde agitator. He influenced Luis Buñuel to a considerable extent....
.
Early writing career
In 1921, Borges returned with his family to Buenos Aires, where he imported the doctrine of
UltraismThe Ultraist movement was a literary movement born in Spain in 1918, with the declared intention of opposing Modernismo, which had dominated Spanish poetry since the end of the 19th century....
and launched his career, publishing surreal poems and essays in literary journals. In 1930, Nestor Ibarra called Borges the "Great Apostle of Criollismo." His first published collection of poetry was
Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923). He contributed to the avant-garde review
Martín FierroMartín Fierro was an Argentine literary magazine which appeared from February 1924 to 1927. It was founded by Evar Méndez , José B. Cairola, Leónidas Campbell, H. Carambat, Luis L. Franco, Oliverio Girondo, Ernesto Palacio, Pablo Rojas Paz, and Gastón O...
(whose "
art for art's sake"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 that the intrinsic value of art, and the only "true" art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function...
" approach contrasted to that of the more politically involved
BoedoBoedo is a working class neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It and one of its principal streets were named after Mariano Boedo, a leading figure in the Argentine independence movement....
group). Borges co-founded the journals
Prisma, a broadsheet distributed largely by pasting copies to walls in Buenos Aires, and
Proa. Later in life Borges regretted some of these early publications, and attempted to purchase all known copies to ensure their destruction.
By the mid-1930s, he began to explore existential questions. He also worked in a style that Ana María Barrenechea has called "irreality." Borges was not alone in this task. Many other Latin American writers, such as
Juan RulfoJuan Rulfo was a Mexican author and photographer. One of Latin America's most esteemed authors, Rulfo's reputation rests on two slim books, the novel Pedro Páramo , and El Llano en llamas , a collection of short stories that includes his...
,
Juan José ArreolaJuan José Arreola Zúñiga was a Mexican writer and academic. He is considered Mexico's premier experimental short story writer of the twentieth century. Arreola is recognized as one of the first Latin American writers to abandon realism; he uses elements of fantasy to underscore existentialist and...
, and
Alejo CarpentierAlejo Carpentier y Valmont was a Cuban novelist, essay writer, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period...
, investigated these themes, influenced by the phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger or the
existentialismLike “rationalism” and “empiricism,” “existentialism” is a term that belongs to intellectual history. Its definition is thus to some extent one of historical convenience...
of
Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy and Existentialism, and his work continues to influence further...
. 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, critic
Paul de ManPaul de Man was a Belgian-born deconstructionist literary critic and theorist.He completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in the late 1950s...
wrote:
- "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. Rather, they are the consistent expansion of a purely poetic consciousness to its furthest limits."
From the first issue, Borges was a regular contributor to
Sur, founded in 1931 by
Victoria OcampoVictoria Ocampo Aguirre was an Argentine intellectual, described by Jorge Luis Borges as la mujer más argentina...
. It was then Argentina's most important literary journal. Ocampo introduced Borges to
Adolfo Bioy CasaresAdolfo Bioy Casares was an Argentine fiction writer.Bioy Casares was born in Buenos Aires, the grandson of a wealthy landowner and dairy processor, and the descendant of Patrick Lynch, a successful Irish emigrant. Bioy's parents were keen alphabet enthusiasts, which explains their choice of his...
, another well-known figure of Argentine literature, who was to become a frequent collaborator and dear friend. Together they wrote a number of works, some under the nom de plume H. Bustos Domecq, including a parody detective series and fantasy stories.
During these years a family friend
Macedonio FernándezMacedonio Fernández was an Argentine writer, humorist, and philosopher. His writings included novels, stories, poetry, journalism, and works not easily classified. He was a mentor to Jorge Luis Borges and other avant-garde Argentine writers. Seventeen years of his correspondence with Borges was...
became a major influence on Borges. The two would preside over discussions in cafés, country retreats, or Fernández' tiny apartment in the
BalvaneraBalvanera is a neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina.-Origin of Name and Alternative Names:The official name, Balvanera, is the name of the parroquia centered around the church of Nuestra Señora de Balvanera, erected in 1831.The zone around Corrientes avenue is known as Once after Plaza Once de...
district.
In 1933 Borges gained an editorial appointment at the literary supplement of the
newspaperA newspaper is a publication containing news, information, and advertising. General-interest newspapers often feature articles on political events, crime, business, art/entertainment, society and sports. Most traditional papers also feature an editorial page containing columns that express the...
Crítica, where he first published the pieces later collected as the
Historia universal de la infamia (
A Universal History of InfamyA Universal History of Infamy, or A Universal History of Iniquity, is a collection of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges, first published in 1935, and revised by the author in 1954...
). 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 EditoresEmecé Editores is an Argentine publishing house, currently a subsidiary of Grupo Planeta.The company was founded in 1939 by Mariano Medina del Río, shortly after his arrival from Spain, with the literary collaboration of Álvaro de las Casas, and the support of Medina's former classmate Carlos Braun...
and wrote weekly columns for
El Hogar, which appeared from 1936 to 1939.
In 1937, Borges found work as first assistant at the Miguel Cané branch of the Buenos Aires Municipal Library. His fellow employees forbade him from cataloguing more than 100 books per day, a task which took him about an hour. The rest of his time he spent in the basement of the library, writing articles and short stories.
Borges's urbane character 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", used Argentine models without pandering to his readers. In his essay "El escritor argentino y la tradición", Borges notes that the very absence of camels in the Qu'ran was proof enough that it was an Arabian work. He suggested that only someone trying to write an "Arab" work would purposefully include a camel. He uses this example to illustrate how his dialogue with universal existential concerns was just as Argentine as writing about gauchos and tangos (subjects he himself used).
Maturity
Borges's father died in 1938, a tragedy for Borges: father and son were very devoted to each other. On
Christmas EveChristmas Eve, December 24, is the night before Christmas Day, which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.-Western Churches:Many Roman Catholics and Anglicans traditionally celebrate a midnight Mass which begins sometime before midnight on Christmas Day; this ceremony, which is held in churches...
1938, Borges suffered a severe head wound; during treatment, he nearly died of septicemia. 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"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.It originally appeared in Spanish in the Argentine journal Sur in May 1939...
" in May 1939. 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"The Garden of Forking Paths" is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges...
) appeared in 1941, composed mostly of works previously published in
Sur. 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 PerónJuan Domingo Perón was an Argentine general and politician, elected three times as President of Argentina, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency. He was overthrown in a military coup in 1955...
became President in 1946, Borges was dismissed from the library and "promoted" to the position of poultry inspector for the Buenos Aires municipal market. (He immediately resigned; he always referred to this post as "Poultry and Rabbit Inspector"). His offenses against the Peronistas up to that time consisted of little more than adding his signature to pro-
democracyDemocracy is a system of government in which either the actual governing is carried out by the people governed , or the power to do so is granted by them...
petitions. Shortly after his resignation, Borges 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."
Without a job, and his vision beginning to fade due to hereditary retinal detachment, and unable to support himself as a writer, Borges began a new career as a public lecturer. Despite a certain degree of political
persecutionPersecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another group. The most common forms are sexual persecution i.e.; persecution of women, religious persecution, ethnic persecution, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these...
, he was reasonably successful. Borges 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. His short story "Emma Zunz" was turned into a film (under the name of
Días de odio (English title:
Days of Hate), directed in 1954 by the Argentine director
Leopoldo Torre NilssonLeopoldo Torre Nilsson , also known as Leo Towers and by his nickname Babsy, was an Argentine film director, producer and screenwriter....
). Around this time, Borges also began writing screenplays.
In 1955 after the initiative of
OcampoVictoria Ocampo Aguirre was an Argentine intellectual, described by Jorge Luis Borges as la mujer más argentina...
,
the new anti-Peronist military governmentThe Revolución Libertadora was a military uprising that ended the second presidential term of Juan Perón in Argentina, on September 16, 1955....
appointed Borges head of the National Library. By that time, he had become completely blind, like one of his best known predecessors,
Paul GroussacPaul-François Groussac was a French-born Argentine writer, literary critic, historian, and librarian. He was born in Toulouse to Catherine Deval and Pierre Groussac, the scion of an old Languedocian family....
, for whom Borges wrote an obituary. 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 Borges was awarded the National Prize for Literature from the University of Cuyo, and the first of many honorary doctorates. From 1956 to 1970, Borges also held a position as a professor of literature at the
University of Buenos AiresThe University of Buenos Aires is the largest university in Argentina and the largest university by enrollment in Latin America, surpassing both the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Universidade Estácio de Sá of Brazil...
, while frequently holding temporary appointments at other universities.
As his eyesight deteriorated, Borges relied increasingly on his mother's help. When he was not able to read and write anymore (he never learned to read
BrailleThe Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write. Braille was devised in 1821 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character or cell is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each...
), his mother, to whom he had always been devoted, became his personal secretary.
International renown
Eight of Borges's poems appear in the authoritative 1943 anthology of Spanish American Poets by H. R. Hays. One of Borges's stories was first translated into English in the August 1948 issue of
Ellery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery Magazine is an American monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction...
; the story was "
The Garden of Forking Paths"The Garden of Forking Paths" is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges...
", the translator
Anthony BoucherAnthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...
. Though several other Borges translations appeared in literary magazines and anthologies during the 1950s, his international fame dates from the early 1960s. In 1961, he received the first International Publishers' Prize
Prix Formentor, which he shared with
Samuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish writer, dramatist and poet. Beckett's work offers a bleak outlook on human culture and both formally and philosophically became increasingly minimalist....
. While Beckett was well-known and respected in the English-speaking world, Borges was 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 AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a public research university located in Austin, Texas, United States, and is the flagship institution of The University of Texas System. The main campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol...
appointed him for one year to the Tinker chair. This led to his first lecture tour in the United States. In 1962, two major anthologies of Borges's writings were published in English by New York presses:
FiccionesFicciones is the most popular anthology of short stories by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges, often considered the best introduction to his work....
and
LabyrinthsLabyrinths is an English-language collection of short stories and essays by Jorge Luis Borges.It includes Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, The Garden of Forking Paths, and The Library of Babel, three of Borges' most famous stories. Many of the stories are from the collections Ficciones and El Aleph ....
. In that year, Borges began lecture tours of Europe. In 1980 he was awarded the
Balzan PrizeThe International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organisations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the brotherhood of man....
(for Philology, Linguistics and literary Criticism) and the
Prix mondial Cino Del DucaThe Prix mondial Cino Del Duca is a major international literary award established in 1969 in France by Simone Del Duca to continue the work of her late husband, publishing magnate Cino Del Duca...
; numerous other honors were to accumulate over the years, such as the French
Legion of HonourThe Légion d'honneur or Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
in 1983, the Cervantes Prize, and even a Special
Edgar Allan Poe AwardThe Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...
from the
Mystery Writers of AmericaMystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
, "for distinguished contribution to the mystery genre".
In 1967, Borges began a five-year period of collaboration with the American translator
Norman Thomas di GiovanniNorman Thomas di Giovanni is an American-born editor and translator known for his collaboration with Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. He was named after Norman Thomas, leader of the American Socialist Party....
, thanks to whom he became better known in the English-speaking world. 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. Brodie's Report, 1970), and
El libro de arena (
The Book of Sand"The Book of Sand" is a 1975 short story by Jorge Luis Borges. It has parallels to "The Zahir", continuing the theme of self-reference and attempting to abandon the terribly infinite....
, 1975). 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 JitrikNoé Jitrik was born in Argentina in 1928 and is one of Latin America's foremost literary critics.He is currently director of the Instituto de literatura hispanoamericana at the University of Buenos Aires, and was a notable participant in the cultural journal Contorno in the 1950s in Argentina.While...
, Adolfo Prieto, and other intellectuals.
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).
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.
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. Friends believed that his mother, who was 90 and anticipating her own death, wanted to find someone to care for her blind son. The
marriageMarriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged by a variety of ways, depending on the culture or demographic...
lasted less than three years. After a legal separation, Borges moved back in with his mother, with whom he lived until her death at age 99. Thereafter, he lived alone in the small flat he had shared with her, cared for by Fanny, their housekeeper of many decades.
From 1975 until the time of his death, Borges traveled all over the world. He was often accompanied in these travels by his personal assistant
María KodamaMaría Kodama is an Argentine writer, translator, and literature professor. She is best-known as the widow of Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, and the heir to his estate....
, an Argentine woman of Japanese and German ancestry. In April 1986, a few months before his death, he married her via an attorney in
ParaguayParaguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay , is one of the two landlocked countries which lie entirely within the Western Hemisphere, the other being Bolivia, both in South America....
.
Jorge Luis Borges died of
liver cancerHepatocellular carcinoma is a primary malignancy of the liver. Most cases of HCC are secondary to either a viral hepatitide infection or cirrhosis...
in 1986 in Geneva. He was buried in the
Cimetière des RoisThe Cimetière des Rois or Cimetière de Plainpalais, is a cemetery in Geneva, Switzerland, where John Calvin, the Protestant reformer, Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine author, Sérgio Vieira de Mello, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Jean Piaget, the noted child psychologist are...
(Plainpalais). After years of legal wrangling about the legality of the marriage, Kodama, as sole inheritor of a significant annual income, gained 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 ObservateurLe Nouvel Observateur is a weekly French newsmagazine. It is the most prominent French general information magazine based in Paris in terms of audience and circulation ....
, and by intellectuals such as
Beatriz SarloBeatriz Sarlo is an Argentine literary and cultural critic. She was also founding editor of the cultural journal Punto de Vista ....
, as an obstacle to the serious reading of Borges's works. Under Kodama, the Borges estate rescinded all publishing rights for existing collections of his work in English (including the translations by
Norman Thomas di GiovanniNorman Thomas di Giovanni is an American-born editor and translator known for his collaboration with Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. He was named after Norman Thomas, leader of the American Socialist Party....
, in which Borges himself cooperated—and from which di Giovanni received fifty percent of the royalties) and commissioned new translations by
Andrew HurleyAndrew 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....
.
Nobel Prize omission
Borges was never awarded the
Nobel Prize in LiteratureThe Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
, something which continually distressed the writer. He was one of several distinguished authors who never received the honor. Some observers speculated that Borges did not receive the award because of his conservative political views — more specifically, that he accepted an honor from dictator
Augusto PinochetAugusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte was a Chilean army general and later head of state as president. He was the Commander in Chief of the Chilean army from 1973 to 1998, president of the Government Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981 and President of the Republic from 1974 until the return of...
.
Works
(partial list)
Anthologies
- Antología personal (1961)
- Labyrinths
Labyrinths is an English-language collection of short stories and essays by Jorge Luis Borges.It includes Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, The Garden of Forking Paths, and The Library of Babel, three of Borges' most famous stories. Many of the stories are from the collections Ficciones and El Aleph ....
(1962, anthology, in English)
- Libro de sueños (1976)
- Nueva antología personal (1980)
Essays and criticism
- Inquisiciones (1925)
- El tamaño de mi esperanza (1926)
- El idioma de los argentinos (1928)
- Evaristo Carriego (1930)
- Discusión (1932)
- Historia de la eternidad (1936)
- Otras inquisiciones (1952)
- Libro del cielo y del infierno (1960), with Bioy Casares
- Prólogos (1975)
- Siete Noches (1980)
- Nueve ensayos dantescos (1982)
- Atlas (1985)
Poetry
- Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923)
- Luna de enfrente (1925)
- Cuaderno San Martin (1929)
- El otro, el mismo (1969)
- La rosa profunda (1975)
- La moneda de hierro (1976)
- Historia de la noche (1977)
- La Cifra (1981)
- Adrogue, con ilustraciones de Norah Borges
Adrogue, con ilustraciones de Norah Borges is a volume of poetry by J. L. Borges, illustrated by her sister Norah Borges. It was born from the lecture given by the author about "Adrogué in his books" on the occasion of the celebrations of the First Week of Culture of the Almirante Brown County in...
(1977)
Poetry and prose
- El hacedor (1960)
- Elogio de la sombra (1969)
- El oro de los tigres (1972)
- La moneda de hierro (1976)
- Los Conjurados (1985)
- El Instante
Short stories
- El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (The Garden of Forking Paths
"The Garden of Forking Paths" is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges...
) (1941; published in Ficciones, 1944)
- Historia universal de la infamia (1935, short stories)
- Seis problemas para don Isidro Parodi (1942)
- Ficciones
Ficciones is the most popular anthology of short stories by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges, often considered the best introduction to his work....
(1944)
- Dos fantasías memorables (1946, as H. Bustos Domecq)
- Un modelo para la muerte (1946)
- El Aleph (1949)
- La muerte y la brújula (1951)
- Crónicas de Bustos Domecq (1967, as H. Bustos Domecq)
- El informe de Brodie (1970)
- El libro de arena (1975)
- Nuevos cuentos de Bustos Domecq (1977), con Bioy Casares
- La memoria de Shakespeare (1983)
- El Encuentro
"The Encounter" is a 1969 short story by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges....
(1997)
Other works
In addition to his short stories for which he is most famous, Borges also wrote
poetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, 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 EnglishOld English , also called Anglo-Saxon, is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary...
and Norse works as well). 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's 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
ModernistModernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society in the late...
period of culture and literature, especially
SymbolismSymbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the movement had its roots in Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
. His fiction is profoundly learned, and always concise. Like his contemporary
Vladimir NabokovVladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer....
and the older
James JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish expatriate author, playwright and poet of the 20th century. He is known for his landmark novel Ulysses and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake , as well as the short story collection Dubliners and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of...
, he combined an interest in his native land with far broader perspectives. He also shared their multilingualism and their playfulness with language—and, coincidentally, being buried in Switzerland—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's work progressed
away from what he referred to as "the baroque," while theirs moved towards it: Borges's later writing style is far more transparent and naturalistic than his earlier works.
Many of his most popular stories concern the nature of time,
infinityInfinity refers to several distinct concepts – usually linked to the idea of "without end" – which arise in philosophy, mathematics, and theology...
,
mirrorA mirror is an object with at least one polished and therefore specularly reflective surface. The most familiar type of mirror is the plane mirror, which has a flat surface...
s,
labyrinthIn Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos. Its function was to hold the Minotaur, a creature that was half man and half bull and was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus...
s,
realityReality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist." Literally, the term denotes what is real; in its widest sense, this includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. Reality in this sense includes being and sometimes is considered to...
, philosophy, and identity. A number of stories focus on fantastic themes, such as a library containing every possible 410-page text ("
The Library of Babel"The Library of Babel" is a short story by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges , conceiving of a universe in the form of a vast library containing all possible 410-page books of a certain format....
"), a man who
forgets nothingEidetic memory, or photographic memory, is the ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with extreme accuracy and in abundant volume. The word eidetic means related to extraordinarily detailed and vivid recall of visual images, and comes from the Greek word είδος , which means "form"...
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 Secret Miracle" is a short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It was first published in the book Artifices in 1944....
"). The same Borges told more and less realistic stories of South American life, stories of folk heroes, streetfighters, soldiers,
gauchoGaucho is a term commonly used to describe residents of the South American pampas, chacos or Patagonian grasslands, found principally in parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Chile and Southern Region, Brazil...
s, detectives, historical figures. 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.
Borges's 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's personal pantheon, he considered the Mexican essayist of similar topics
Alfonso ReyesAlfonso Reyes Ochoa was a Mexican writer, philosopher, and diplomat.Alfonso Reyes, the son of General Bernardo Reyes, was educated primarily in Mexico City...
"the best prose-writer in the Spanish language of any time." (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
TangoTango is a musical genre and its associated dance forms that originated in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay, and spread to the rest of the world soon after.Early tango was known as tango criollo, or simply tango...
" or his writings on the epic poem
Martín FierroMartín Fierro is an 2,316 line epic poem by the Argentine writer José Hernández. The poem was originally published in two parts, El Gaucho Martín Fierro and La Vuelta de Martín Fierro . The poem is, in part, a protest against the Europeanizing and modernizing tendencies of Argentine president...
explore specifically Argentine themes, such as the identity of the
Argentine peopleArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
and of various Argentine subcultures. His interest in fantasy, philosophy, and the art of translation are evident in articles such as "The Translators of
The Thousand and One NightsOne Thousand and One Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age...
", while
The Book of Imaginary Beings is a thoroughly (and
obscurely) researched
bestiaryA bestiary, or Bestiarum vocabulum is a compendium of beasts. Bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals, birds and even rocks. The natural history and illustration of each beast was usually accompanied by a moral lesson...
of
mythical creaturesA legendary creature is a mythological or folkloric creature .-Description:Some creatures, such as the dragon and griffin, have their origin in traditional mythology and have been believed to be real creatures...
, in the preface of which Borges wrote, "There is a kind of lazy pleasure in useless and out-of-the-way erudition." Borges's interest in fantasy was shared by
Adolfo Bioy CasaresAdolfo Bioy Casares was an Argentine fiction writer.Bioy Casares was born in Buenos Aires, the grandson of a wealthy landowner and dairy processor, and the descendant of Patrick Lynch, a successful Irish emigrant. Bioy's parents were keen alphabet enthusiasts, which explains their choice of his...
, with whom Borges coauthored several collections of tales between 1942 and 1967, sometimes under different pseudonyms including
H. Bustos DomecqH. is a pseudonym used for several collaborative works by the Argentine writers Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares.-Origin:Bustos Domecq made his first appearance as F...
.
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
idealismIdealism is the philosophical theory that maintains that the ultimate nature of reality is based on mind or ideas. It holds that the so-called external or "real world" is inseparable from mind, consciousness, or perception...
is reflected in the fictional world of Tlön in "
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis TertiusTlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is a short story by the 20th century Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in the Argentine journal Sur, May 1940. The "postscript" dated 1947 is intended to be anachronistic, set seven years in the future...
", in his essay "
A New Refutation of Time"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. It consists of a prologue and two articles: the first one was written in 1944 and appeared in number 115 of the review Sur; the second, written...
", "
On Exactitude in Science"On Exactitude in Science" or "On Rigor in Science" is a one-paragraph short story by Jorge Luis Borges, about the map/territory relation, written in the form of a literary forgery.-Plot:The story elaborates on a conceit in Lewis Carroll's Sylvie and Bruno Concluded: a fictional map that had "the...
", and in his poem "Things". Similarly, a common thread runs through his story "
The Circular Ruins"The Circular Ruins" is a fantasy short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. Published in el Sur in December 1940, it was included in the 1941 collection The Garden of Forking Paths and then in part one of the 1944 collection Ficciones...
" and his poem "
El Golem"El Golem" is a poem by Jorge Luis Borges, part of the 1964 book El otro, el mismo . The poem tells the story of Judah Loew and his giving birth to the Golem. In that poem, Borges quotes the works of German Jewish philosopher Gershom Scholem....
" ("The Golem").
As already mentioned, Borges was notable as a translator. He translated Oscar Wilde's story
The Happy PrinceThe Happy Prince and Other Tales is an 1888 collection of stories for children by Oscar Wilde. It is most famous for The Happy Prince, the short tale of a metal statue who befriends a migratory bird...
into Spanish when he was nine, perhaps an early indication of his literary talent. At the end of his life he produced a Spanish-language version of the
Prose EddaThe Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda or simply Edda, is an Old Norse language Icelandic collection of four sections interspersed with excerpts from earlier skaldic and Eddic poetry containing tales from Norse mythology...
. He also translated (while simultaneously subtly transforming) the works of, among others,
Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the...
,
Franz KafkaFranz Kafka was a major fiction writer of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Bohemia , Austria–Hungary...
,
Hermann HesseHermann Hesse was a German Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
,
Rudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling was a British author and poet. Born in Bombay, British India, he is best known for his works of fiction The Jungle Book , Kim , many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King ; and his poems, including...
,
Herman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet who is often classified as part of dark romanticism...
,
André GideAndré Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
,
William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner was a Nobel Prize-winning American author. One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, his reputation is based on his novels, novellas and short stories. He was also a published poet and an occasional screenwriter.Most of Faulkner's works are set in his native state...
,
Walt WhitmanWalter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
,
Virginia WoolfAdeline Virginia Woolf was an English novelist, essayist, epistler, publisher, feminist, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, Sir
Thomas BrowneSir Thomas Browne was an English author of varied works which disclose his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric....
, and
G. K. ChestertonGilbert Keith Chesterton was one of the most influential English writers of the 20th century. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy and detective fiction....
. 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-epigraphaPseudepigrapha are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed authorship is unfounded; a work, simply, "whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past." The word "pseudepigrapha" is the plural of "pseudepigraphon" ; the Anglicized forms...
.
Borges's 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 Swedenborgwas a Swedish scientist, philosopher, Christian mystic, and theologian. Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. At the age of fifty-six he entered into a spiritual phase in which he experienced dreams and visions...
or
The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, originally passing them off as translations of things he had come upon in his reading. 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"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.It originally appeared in Spanish in the Argentine journal Sur in May 1939...
, author of the
Quixote", which imagines a twentieth-century Frenchman who tries to write
Miguel de CervantesMiguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, often considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature and is regularly regarded among the best novels ever written. His work is considered among the most important in all...
'
Don Quixote verbatim---not by having memorized Cervantes' work, but as an "original" narrative of his own invention. 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's "review" of the work of the fictional Menard uses tongue-in-cheek comparisons to discuss the resonances that
Don Quixote, fully titled The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha , is a novel written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes...
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.
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 CarlyleThomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.
Coming from a strict Calvinist family,...
's
Sartor ResartusThomas Carlyle's major work, Sartor Resartus , first published as a serial in 1833-34, purported to be a commentary on the thought and early life of a German philosopher called Diogenes Teufelsdröckh , author of a tome entitled "Clothes: their Origin and Influence" , but was actually a poioumenon...
, a book-length review of a non-existent German
transcendentalistTranscendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century...
philosophical work, and the
biographyA biography is a description or account of someone's life and the times, which is usually published in the form of a book or essay, or in some other form, such as a film. An autobiography is a biography of a person's life written or told by that same person...
of its equally non-existent author.
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. A more reasonable, more inept, and more lazy man, I have chosen to write notes on
imaginary books." [
Collected Fictions, p. 67]
As Argentine and world citizen
Borges's 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. As a young man, he visited the frontier
pampasThe Pampas are the fertile South American lowlands that include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, and Córdoba, most of Uruguay, and the southernmost end of Brazil, the Rio Grande do Sul, covering more than...
where the boundaries of Argentina,
UruguayUruguay , is a country located in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.46 million people, of whom 1.1 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area. An estimated 88–94% of the population are of mostly European and/or mixed descent.Uruguay's only land border is...
, and
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
blurred, and lived and studied in
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
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
GenevaGeneva, is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie...
where he had attended high school (he never went to university). Drawing on influences of many times and places, Borges's work belittled nationalism and racism. An
ArgentineArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
, Borges set some of his historical fiction in
UruguayUruguay , is a country located in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.46 million people, of whom 1.1 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area. An estimated 88–94% of the population are of mostly European and/or mixed descent.Uruguay's only land border is...
.
He grew acquainted with the literature from Argentine, Spanish, North American, English, French, German, Italian, and Northern European/Icelandic sources, including those of
Anglo-SaxonOld English , also called Anglo-Saxon, is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary...
and Old Norse. He also read many translations of
Near EastNear East today is an ambiguous term that covers different countries for archeologists and historians, on one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
ern and
Far EastThe Far East is a term used in English mostly equivalent to East Asia and Southeast Asia, sometimes to the inclusion of South Asia for economic and cultural reasons."Far East" came into use in European geopolitical discourse in...
ern works. The universalism that made him interested in world literature reflected an attitude that was not congruent with the
PerónJuan Domingo Perón was an Argentine general and politician, elected three times as President of Argentina, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency. He was overthrown in a military coup in 1955...
government's extreme
nationalismNationalism is an ideology, a sentiment, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. It is a type of collectivism emphasizing the collective of a specific nation...
. That government's meddling with Borges's job fueled his skepticism of government (he labeled himself a
SpencerianHerbert Spencer was an English philosopher, prominent classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era....
anarchistAnarchism is a political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which consider the state, as compulsory government, to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable, and favors the absence of the state ....
in the blurb of
Atlas). When extreme Argentine nationalists sympathetic to the
NazisNazism, known officially in German as National Socialism , is the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.Nazism is often considered...
asserted Borges was
JewishJudaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...
(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
ChristianChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
genealogyGenealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
, along with a backhanded reminder that any "pure" Castilian just might likely have a Jew in their ancestry, stemming from a millennium back.
Multicultural influences on his writing
Borges's 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 IndependenceWhat today is commonly referred as the Independence of Argentina was declared on July 9 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán. Actually, Argentina was not a country yet; the congressmen joined in Tucuman declared the independence of the United Provinces of South America...
. During that period substantial immigration came from Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Russia,
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
and
LebanonLebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon
[Republic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies...]
(then parts of the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
), the United Kingdom,
Austria-HungaryAustria–Hungary, also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the k.u.k. Monarchy, or Dual State, was a monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in Central Europe...
,
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
,
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
,
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
,
YugoslaviaThe Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a kingdom stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
, North America,
BelgiumThe 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 of other major international organizations, including NATO...
,
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
, the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
,
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
, and China, with the Italians and Spanish forming the largest influx.
Collaboration with Adolfo Bioy Casares
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 CasaresAdolfo Bioy Casares was an Argentine fiction writer.Bioy Casares was born in Buenos Aires, the grandson of a wealthy landowner and dairy processor, and the descendant of Patrick Lynch, a successful Irish emigrant. Bioy's parents were keen alphabet enthusiasts, which explains their choice of his...
, and in the unnamed multi-ethnic city that's the setting for "
Death and the CompassDeath and the Compass is British director Alex Cox's second Mexican feature , made in 1996. Based on the short story Death and the Compass by Jorge Luis Borges, the film is in English, and stars Peter Boyle as Erik Lönnrot the detective, Miguel Sandoval as Treviranus, his boss, and Christopher...
", which may or may not be Buenos Aires.
Religious influences
Borges's writing is also steeped by influences and informed by scholarship of
ChristianChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
,
BuddhistBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
,
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
ic, and
JewishJudaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...
faiths, including mainline religious figures, heretics, and mystics.
Specialist in the history, culture, and literature of Argentina and Uruguay
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's first book, the poetry collection
Fervor de Buenos Aires (
Passion for Buenos Aires), appeared in 1923. Considering Borges's 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 CarriegoEvaristo Carriego , was an Argentine poet, best known for the biography written about him by Jorge Luis Borges.- Works :* Misas herejes...
") 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.
Borges's 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
UruguayUruguay , is a country located in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.46 million people, of whom 1.1 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area. An estimated 88–94% of the population are of mostly European and/or mixed descent.Uruguay's only land border is...
. 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's maternal great-grandfather,
Manuel Isidoro SuárezManuel Isidoro Suárez was an Argentine colonel who commanded Peruvian and Colombian cavalry troops in their wars of independence. He was noted for his pivotal role in securing a revolutionary victory at the Battle of Junín...
, was another military hero, whom Borges immortalized in the poem "A Page to Commemorate Colonel Suárez, Victor at Junín." The city of
Coronel SuárezCoronel Suárez is a town in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It is also the capital of Coronel Suárez Partido.The partido was created in 1882 by the government of Buenos Aires Province in Argentina who divided the territory of Tres Arroyos into the partidos of Tres Arroyos, Coronel Pringles and...
in the south of
Buenos Aires ProvinceBuenos Aires Province is the most populous province of Argentina. Though it takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the latter is not part of the provincial territory; Buenos Aires is an autonomous city...
is named after him.
Mathematics
A book by Argentina mathematician and writer,
Guillermo MartínezGuillermo Martínez is an Argentine novelist and short story writer.Martínez was born in Bahía Blanca, Argentina. He gained a PhD in mathematical logic at the University of Buenos Aires....
, was published in 2003, collecting the transcript of a series of talks given by him in the
MALBAThe Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires is a museum created by Argentine businessman Eduardo F. Costantini. It is a not-for-profit institution featuring the Costantini Collection, and also a dynamic cultural center, that constantly updates art and film exhibitions and develops cultural...
auditorium, concerning how Borges used concepts from mathematics in his work. Martínez believes that Borges had at the very least a superficial knowledge of set theory and several other topics, as he seems to handle them with great elegance in his stories; an example of this would be Borges's "
The Book of Sand"The Book of Sand" is a 1975 short story by Jorge Luis Borges. It has parallels to "The Zahir", continuing the theme of self-reference and attempting to abandon the terribly infinite....
", which always has a page in between the others, thus making it infinite, and its pages infinitely thin; this being a very clear nod to Cantor's
Set TheoryThe modern study of set theory was initiated by Cantor and Dedekind in the 1870s. After the discovery of paradoxes in informal set theory, numerous axiom systems were proposed in the early twentieth century, of which the Zermelo–Fraenkel axioms, with the axiom of choice, are the best-known.The...
.
Martín Fierro and tradition
Borges contributed to a few
avant garde publications in the early 1920s, including one called
Martín FierroMartín Fierro was an Argentine literary magazine which appeared from February 1924 to 1927. It was founded by Evar Méndez , José B. Cairola, Leónidas Campbell, H. Carambat, Luis L. Franco, Oliverio Girondo, Ernesto Palacio, Pablo Rojas Paz, and Gastón O...
, named after the major work of 19th century Argentine literature,
Martín Fierro, a gauchesque poem by
José HernándezJosé Hernández was an Argentine journalist, poet, and politician best known as the author of the epic poem Martín Fierro....
, published in two parts, in 1872 and 1880. 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. Borges's 1953
book of essays on the poem, El "Martín Fierro"Like most Argentines, Jorge Luis Borges was a great admirer of José Hernández's poem Martín Fierro.With real or feigned modesty about his own work, he routinely characterized it as the one clearly great work in Argentine literature...
, separates his great admiration for the aesthetic
virtues of the work from his rather mixed opinion of the moral virtues of its protagonist. 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."
Sexuality
There has been discussion of Borges's attitudes towards sex and women. It is undeniable that, with a few notable exceptions, women are almost entirely absent from the majority of his fictional output. Herbert J. Brant's essay "The Queer Use of Communal Women in Borges's '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. 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's writings of heterosexual love and attraction. The story "
Ulrikke"Ulrikke" is a short story by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. It is notable because it is one of the few of Borges' stories in which women and sex play a central role....
" from
The Book of Sand"The Book of Sand" is a 1975 short story by Jorge Luis Borges. It has parallels to "The Zahir", continuing the theme of self-reference and attempting to abandon the terribly infinite....
tells a romantic tale of heterosexual desire, love, trust and sex. The protagonist of "El muerto" clearly relishes and lusts after the "splendid, contemptuous, red-haired woman" of Azevedo Bandeira. Later he "sleeps with the woman with shining hair". "El muerto" ("The Dead Man") contains two separate examples of definitive gaucho heterosexual lust.
Cultural reference
The 1970 film
PerformancePerformance is a British film made in 1968 but not released until . It was directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, and stars James Fox and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones in his film acting debut.- Plot :...
, directed by
Donald CammellDonald Seaton Cammell was a Scottish film director who enjoys a cult reputation thanks to his debut film Performance, which he co-directed with Nicolas Roeg.-Biography:...
and starring
Mick JaggerSir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is a Golden Globe and Grammy Award winning English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, occasional film producer and actor, best known for his work as lead vocalist and frontman of The Rolling Stones.The Rolling Stones started in the early 1960s as a...
and
James FoxJames Fox, OBE is an English actor.-Early life:James Fox was born in London to theatrical agent Robin Fox and actress Angela Worthington. He is the brother of actor Edward Fox and film producer Robert Fox. He is also a paternal half-brother of Daniel Chatto and a brother-in-law of Lady Sarah Chatto...
, is replete with Borgesian references. A photograph of Borges is briefly displayed during a montage sequence, a mirror is destroyed when shot with a gun, and the character played by Mick Jagger mentions the magicians of Orbis Tertius and also reads aloud a short passage from the short story "El sur."
In the film
Alphaville by
Jean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard is a French and Swiss filmmaker and one of the founding members of the Nouvelle Vague, or "French New Wave"....
, there are several instances where Borges texts are said, notably by Alpha 60 (the computer that rules Alphaville) in its final moments.
In
Umberto EcoUmberto Eco is an Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, literary critic and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
's
The Name of the RoseThe Name of the Rose, a novel by Umberto Eco, is a historical whodunnit — a murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327. It is an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
the character Jorge di Burgos is based on Borges.
Filmography
- Harto The Borges
Harto The Borges is a documentary film created by Eduardo Montes-Bradley. Harto The Borges escapes the general rule of biographical films on Latin American writers by exploring a the narcissistic side of the author, his frequent and often criticized comments to the press, his distinctive and gentle...
, dir. Eduardo Montes-BradleyEduardo Montes-Bradley is an American writer-filmmaker born July 9, 1960. He’s best know for his biographical works in the style of Ken Burns. Montes-Bradley has produced, directed, written or otherwise engaged in over forty films...
. ArgentinaArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
, 2004. (documentaryDocumentary film is a broad category of visual expressions that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality. Although "documentary film" originally referred to movies shot on film stock, it has subsequently expanded to include video and digital productions that can...
)
- Borges para millones, dir. Ricardo Willicher. Argentina (documentary)
Further reading
- Labryinths"/published by New Directions., 1967 and reissued in 2007
- Borges/ Adolfo Bioy Casares, 2007
- Jorge Luis Borges (Critical Lives) / Jason Wilson., 2006
- With Borges / Alberto Manguel., 2006
- Borges and Dante : echoes of a literary friendship / Humberto Núñez-Faraco., 2006
- Borges and translation : the irreverence of the periphery / Sergio Gabriel Waisman., 2005
- Borges : a life / Edwin Williamson., 2005
- You might be able to get there from here: reconsidering Borges and the postmodern / Frisch, Mark F., 2004
- Jorge Luis Borges (Bloom's BioCritiques) / Bloom, Harold., 2004
- Jorge Luis Borges as writer and social critic / Racz, Gregary Joseph., 2003
- The lesson of the master: on Borges and his work / Di Giovanni, Norman Thomas., 2003
- Borges, the passion of an endless quotation / Block de Behar, Lisa., 2003
- Jorge Luis Borges (Bloom's Major Short Story Writers) / Bloom, Harold., 2002
- Invisible work: Borges and translation / Kristal, Efraín., 2002
- Borges and his fiction: a guide to his mind and art / Bell-Villada, Gene., 1999
- Jorge Luis Borges: thought and knowledge in the XXth century / Toro, Alfonso de., 1999
- The secret of Borges: a psychoanalytic inquiry into his work / Woscoboinik, Julio., 1998
- Borges and Europe revisited / Fishburn, Evelyn., 1998
- Nightglow: Borges' poetics of blindness / Yudin, Florence., 1997
- The Borges tradition / Di Giovanni, Norman Thomas., 1995
- Signs of Borges / Molloy, Sylvia., 1994
- Cervantes and the modernists: the question of influence / Williamson, Edwin., 1994
- Out of context: historical reference and the representation of reality in Borges / Balderston, Daniel., 1993
- With Borges on an Ordinary Evening in Buenos Aires: A Memoir / Willis Barnstone., 1993
- Jorge Luis Borges: a writer on the edge / Sarlo, Beatriz., 1993
- Borges' Narrative Strategy / Shaw, Donald L., 1992
- Borges revisited / Stabb, Martin S., 1991
- The contemporary praxis of the fantastic: Borges and Cortázar / Rodríguez-Luis, Julio., 1991
- Borges and his successors: the Borgesian impact on literature and the arts / Aizenberg, Edna., 1990
- Jorge Luis Borges: a study of the short fiction / Lindstrom, Naomi., 1990
- Borges and the Kabbalah: and other essays on his fiction and poetry / Alazraki, Jaime., 1988
- The meaning of experience in the prose of Jorge Luis Borges / Agheana, Ion Tudro., 1988
- Critical essays on Jorge Luis Borges / Alazraki, Jaime., 1987
- Jorge Luis Borges (Modern Critical Views) / Bloom, Harold., 1986
- Jorge Luis Borges, life, work, and criticism / Yates, Donald A., 1985
- The prose of Jorge Luis Borges: existentialism and the dynamics of surprise / Agheana, Ion Tudro., 1984
- The aleph weaver: biblical, kabbalistic and Judaic elements in Borges / Aizenberg, Edna., 1984
- Borges at Eighty: Conversations / Willis Barnstone., 1982
- Borges and his fiction: a guide to his mind and art / Bell-Villada, Gene H., 1981
- Jorge Luis Borges / McMurray, George R., 1980
- Jorge Luis Borges, A Literary Biography / Monegal, Emir Rodriguez, 1978
- Paper tigers: the ideal fictions of Jorge Luis Borges / Sturrock, John., 1977
- The Cardinal points of Borges / Dunham, Lowell., 1971
External links
- Poem of Jorge Luis Borges in Buenos Aires, Argentina, about the 'soul' and the mythical foundation his beloved city
- Norman Thomas di Giovanni's website which includes unpublished Borges material and Borges in conversation with Osvaldo Ferrari
- English translation of Dreamtigers (a.k.a. El Hacedor), now freely available online in its entirety.
- English translation of Rain
- English translation of Ewigkeit
- English translation of Mis libros
- International Jose Guillermo Carrillo Foundation
- The Borgesian Cyclopaedia. "Being a Virtual Reference to the World of Jorge Luis Borges".
- Fundación San Telmo's Jorge Luis Borges Collection
- The Norton Lectures, delivered at Harvard University in the fall of 1967, by Borges
- "El Tango" on audio MP3 (in Spanish)
- Hallucinating Spaces, or the Aleph An essay from Borgesland by Susana Medina
- Interview with Borges at the University of Buenos Aires from Habitus: A Diaspora Journal
- BBC Radio 4: In Our Time Archive page for edition about Borges in a series on the 'History of Ideas'. Includes link to streaming audio.
- Borges Center, University of Pittsburgh: important internet resources including bibliographies, chronologies, full text articles and books, and information on the journal Variaciones Borges
- The Modern Word: The Garden of Forking Paths. A comprehensive Web site dedicated to exploring Borges and his work, including pages that discuss writers that Borges influenced.
- Borges' Bad Politics Slate.com presents a revisionist essay by Clive James
Clive James AM is an expatriate Australian author, poet, critic, memoirist, talk show host, television presenter, travel writer and cultural commentator.-Biography:...
arguing that Borges could have done more to engage with Argentina's political situation
- Rend(er)ing L.C.: Susan Daitch Meets Borges & Borges, Delacroix, Marx, Derrida, Daumier, and Other Textualized Bodies William A. Nericcio (1993); pdf full-text
- The Friends of Jorge Luis Borges Worldwide Society & Associates A non-Governmental and not for profit organization with four distinctive entities that aim to promote artistic and intellectual talents along with civic virtues in new generations of mankind. Borges' works ("a writer of writers" for his extensive and insightful readings) are celebrated as a thread of Ariadne to walk the labyrinths of Philosophy and Literature and all fields of knowledge in quest of wisdom.