Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges was born on the 24th of August 1899 in Palermo, a poor neighborhood of Buenos Aires. His family lived in a large house filled with an English library containing over one thousand volumes. He later described this collection as the chief event of his life. His father, Jorge Guillermo Borges Haslam, was a lawyer who wrote a novel called El caudillo in 1921 but failed to become a successful writer. The younger Borges grew up bilingual, reading Shakespeare in English by age twelve and translating Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince into Spanish at age ten. This early immersion in two languages shaped his entire career.
In 1914, the family moved to Geneva, Switzerland, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. They traveled extensively through Europe, including Spain, before returning to Argentina in 1921. Upon his return, Borges began publishing poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He co-founded journals like Prisma and Proa, though he later regretted these early publications and tried to buy back copies for destruction. By the mid-1930s, he shifted from regionalist poetry to exploring existential questions and fiction in a style critics called irreality. This transition marked the beginning of his unique literary voice.
Borges's vision began fading gradually when he was thirty years old. By the time he reached fifty-eight, he was completely blind. He never learned Braille, so his mother became his personal secretary. When he could no longer read or write, she transcribed his words for him until her death at age ninety-nine. This physical limitation forced him to rely on memory and oral composition techniques. He stated that every thought becomes a tool when one loses sight.
His blindness influenced his writing style profoundly. As his eyesight waned, he focused more on poetry because he could memorize an entire work in progress. His collection Elogio de la Sombra (In Praise of Darkness) developed themes related to this loss. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library despite being unable to see the books. He famously said that God granted him books and night with splendid irony. This period saw him become an increasingly public figure as a lecturer and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Borges faced severe political persecution under Juan Perón's government. After opposing the regime, he was demoted from librarian to inspector of poultry and rabbits at a municipal market. He resigned immediately and later joined demonstrations after Perón was overthrown in 1955. He shouted Viva la Patria until his voice grew hoarse. When Perón returned from exile in 1973, Borges became enraged again and refused to honor the government.
Later in life, Borges supported Argentina's military junta in 1976 but changed his stance when they committed atrocities during the Dirty War. He attended trials of the junta in 1985 and stated that failing to judge their crimes would make one an accomplice. His political views were complex; he called himself a Spencerian anarchist who believed in the individual rather than the state. He hated communists and Nazis alike, yet he once thanked dictator Jorge Rafael Videla for saving the country from ignominy before condemning the junta's actions. These contradictions made him a controversial figure throughout his career.
International recognition arrived for Borges in the early 1960s through translations and awards. In 1961, he received the first International Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. While Beckett already had a distinguished reputation, Borges remained largely unknown in the English-speaking world. This prize stirred great interest in his work and led to lecture tours across Europe and the United States. Two major anthologies of his writings appeared in English by New York presses in 1962: Ficciones and Labyrinths.
He continued receiving honors throughout the decade, including a Special Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1976 and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize in 1980. The French Legion of Honour followed in 1983. Despite never winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, he was nominated over thirty times. Some observers speculated that his conservative political views prevented him from receiving the award. A committee member wrote in 1979 that Borges's hasty political gestures made him an improper laureate for ethical reasons. Nevertheless, his international fame grew steadily as more translations appeared.
Borges's best-known stories explore themes like infinity, mirrors, labyrinths, and time itself. His story The Garden of Forking Paths presents a Chinese professor who spies for Germany during World War I while trying to prove that an Asian person can obtain information authorities seek. This combination of book and maze suggests a theory of the universe based on non-linear narrative structures. Another famous tale describes a library containing every possible four-hundred-and-ten-page text known as The Library of Babel.
His work often mixes fact with fantasy, creating stories about men who forget nothing or artifacts allowing users to see everything in the universe. He examined universal randomness through tales like The Lottery in Babylon and madness via The Zahir. These narratives influenced science fiction writers such as Philip K. Dick and William Gibson. Gibson recalled reading Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius and feeling as though he were installing software that exponentially increased bandwidth. The term Borgesian conundrum now refers to whether the writer writes the story or if it writes him.
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Common questions
When and where was Jorge Luis Borges born?
Jorge Luis Borges was born on the 24th of August 1899 in Palermo, a poor neighborhood of Buenos Aires. His family lived in a large house filled with an English library containing over one thousand volumes.
How did Jorge Luis Borges lose his sight?
Borges's vision began fading gradually when he was thirty years old and became completely blind by age fifty-eight. He never learned Braille so his mother transcribed his words for him until her death at age ninety-nine.
What political events affected Jorge Luis Borges during the mid-20th century?
During the 1940s and 1950s, Jorge Luis Borges faced severe political persecution under Juan Perón's government which led to his demotion from librarian to inspector of poultry and rabbits. He later supported Argentina's military junta in 1976 but changed his stance when they committed atrocities during the Dirty War.
Which awards did Jorge Luis Borges receive in the 1960s and 1970s?
In 1961, Jorge Luis Borges received the first International Formentor Prize which he shared with Samuel Beckett. He continued receiving honors throughout the decade including a Special Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1976 and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize in 1980.
What themes appear in Jorge Luis Borges best-known stories?
Jorge Luis Borges best-known stories explore themes like infinity mirrors labyrinths and time itself. His story The Garden of Forking Paths presents a Chinese professor who spies for Germany during World War I while trying to prove that an Asian person can obtain information authorities seek.