Jorge Luis Borges
1899–1986 · Argentine (Buenos Aires/Geneva) · 20th Century Latin American Literature
Known for: Master of the short story—Ficciones, The Aleph, Labyrinths—inventor of literary postmodernism
Borges was a librarian who went blind and became director of Argentina's National Library—'God's splendid irony,' he said, 'granting me at once 800,000 books and darkness.' He never wrote a novel, considering the form padded. His short stories are dense, cerebral puzzles blending philosophy, theology, and detective fiction.
He was politically conservative, which may have cost him the Nobel Prize. He was gentle, witty, and endlessly erudite—reading in English, Spanish, German, French, and Old English. His influence on postmodern literature—Eco, Calvino, Pynchon—is fundamental. He married twice, both times late in life.
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