Jorge Luis Borges

Born in Buenos Aires 24 August 1899 - died in Geneva 14 June 1986

Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires on 24 August, 1899, and was the eldest son of Jorge Borges, and Leonor Acevedo who was of English and Portuguese origins. His father taught psychology at the Institute for Living Languages and wrote an historical novel, El Caudillo (The Baron). It was his father and his English grandmother, Fany Haslam, who awoke his love of literature. He spent his childhood in a big house with a garden in the "Palermo" neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Until he entered school at the age of nine he and his sister Norah, a future painter, were tutored by an English governess. He learnt to read in English before he did in Spanish. He went through his father's library and was enthralled by great English-speaking authors such as Kipling, Stevenson, Wells, Dickens and Mark Twain. At the age of six, after reading El Quijote, he wrote a 5-page story in ancient Spanish, La Visera Fatal (The fatal Visor). When he was nine he chose to transnslate Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince.

Young Borges was studying French in Geneva's prestigious Calvin School when war broke out in 1914. He obtained his baccalaureat there and read Tartarin de Tarascon, Les Miserables, Victor Hugo, Flaubert, Monpassant, Voltaire, Verlaine, Zola, Barbusse and others. He learnt German and came into contact with the Dada group and German Expressionist poets at Zurich's "Café Voltaire". During this time his grandmother died in Geneva and when the war ended in 1919 he went to Spain and lived in Barcelona, Mallorca, Sevilla and Madrid. It is here that his literary career began. He was part of the "Ultraista". Spanish vanguard movement. He published poems, essays and translations in committed magazines.

Borge became friends with a prolific author who he always considered one of his masters,Rafael Cansino-Assens, connaisseur of Oriental end European languages. In 1921 he returned to Buenos Aires and was dazzled by the city of his birth around which he would build one of his greatest literary myths. He and other young authors published Prisma, a sort of giant poster which was posted on walls and for which Borges wrote the first "Argentino Ultraista" manifesto. In 1922, he and Macedonio Fernadez founded Proa, an unconventional magazine based on absolute idealism and which deeply fascinated him. In 1923 he published his first book of poems, Fervor de Buenos Aires and began to contribute to various committed publications. He joined the Florida Group which espoused " Art for art's sake" In 1925 he published two books of poems, Luna de Enfrente (The Facing Moon) and Inquisiciones , his first book of essays featuring sardonic epitaphs such as, "Here lies Don Jorge-Luis. He was one of the best but was killed by the Inquisition because of a missing comma", referring to his preoccupation with style. From 1926 to 37 he published several books of essays and poems on Arentinian history and literature and began to gain widespread recognition with works such as: El tamaño de mi esperanza, El idioma de los argentinos, Cuaderno San Martin, Evaristo Carriego, discusión, Historia universal de la infámia, Antologia clásica de la literatura argentina.

In 1938 Borges' father became blind and died and, for the first time in his life, Borges had to look for a job. He found one in the Buenos Aires municipal library. He had an accident on Christmas Day and spent several weeks between life and death. While he was convalescing he wrote Pierre Menard, Autor del Quijote which marked his turn to wards fantastic literature.

In quick succession he published: Antologia de la literatura fantástica, Antología poética argentina y Jardin de los sendéros que se Bifurcan (Garden of bifurcating Paths), his first book of stories. He became a victim of political reprisals under the Peronist regime and was sacked from his library job. In 1952 he published, Otras inquisiciones and El Martin Fierro. In 1955 Peron was deposed and Borges was appointed director of the National Library and menber of the Argentine Academy of Letters. In 1955 he began to lose his eye sight and taught English literature at the University of Buenos Aires. During his final decades he received many distinctions from all over the world such as the Formentor Prize, that of the International Publishers which he shared with Samuel Beckett in 1961, the Jerusalem Prize in 1971 and, in 1980, the King of Spain bestowed on him the Cervantes Prizes. He also received many honorfic degrees, among them Honoris causa doctorates in letters from the universities of Columbia, Oxford, Cambridge, Puerto Rico, Harvard and Paris. He continued to write and in 1969 published Elogio de la sombra (In praise of the shadow) and in 1970 El informe de Brodie (Brodies's report), thus renewing his narratives after a 20-year interruption.

He was deeply attached to his mother, Leonor Acevedo who died in 1975 at the age of nearly 100. The final years of his life were filled with travels, conferences and honors. Along with his wife Maria Kodama who was his accomplice and faithful collaborator he moved to Geneva where, he wrote, he felt "mysteriously happy". He died on 14 June, 1986 at the age of 87 and is buried in the local Cemetery of Kings.