BORGES, Jorge Luis

Nationality: Argentine. Born: Buenos Aires, 24 August 1899. Education: College Calvin, Geneva, Switzerland, 1914-18; also studied at Cambridge University, England, and in Buenos Aires. Family: Married 1) Elsa Astete Millán in 1967 (divorced 1970); 2) María Kodama in 1986. Career: Moved with his family to Geneva, Switzerland, 1914; lived in Spain with his family and associated with Andalusian poet Rafael Cansinos-Asséns and with a new literary circle, the Ultraists, 1919-21; returned to Buenos Aires with his family and associated with the poet Macedonio Fernandéz and his literary circle; cofounder, Prisma (Ultraist magazine); cofounder and editor, Proa, 1924-26, and Sur, 1931; columnist, El Hogar weekly, Buenos Aires, 1936-39; literary advisor, Emecé Editores, Buenos Aires; municipal librarian, Buenos Aires, 1937-46; state poultry inspector, 1946; teacher of English literature at several private institutions and lecturer in Argentina and Uruguay, 1946-55; director, National Library, Buenos Aires, 1955-73; professor of English and U.S. literature, University of Buenos Aires, 1956-70. Norton professor of poetry, Harvard University, 1967-68; visiting lecturer, University of Texas, 1961-62, University of Oklahoma, 1969, University of New Hampshire, 1972, and Dickinson College, 1983. President, Argentine Writers Society, 1950-53. Awards: Buenos Aires municipal literary prize, 1928, for El idioma de los argentinos; Argentine Writers Society prize, 1945, for Ficciones, 1935-1944; National prize for literature, for El Aleph; International Congress of Publishers prize (shared with Samuel Beckett), 1961; Fondo de les Artes, 1963; Ingram Merrill Foundation award, 1966; Bienal Foundation Matarazzo Sobrinho Inter-American literary prize, 1970; Jerusalem prize, 1971; Alfonso Reyes prize (Mexico), 1973; Government of Chile Bernando O'Higgins prize, 1976; French Academy gold medal, 1979; Miguel de Cervantes award (Spain) and Balzan prize (Italy), both 1980; Ollin Yoliztli prize (Mexico), 1981; Ingersoll Foundation and Rockford Institute T.S. Eliot award for creative writing, 1983; Menendez Pelayo University gold medal (Spain), 1983; National Book Critics Circle award for criticism, 1999, for Selected Non-Fictions. Honorary degrees: University of Cuyo, Argentina, 1956; University of the Andes, Colombia, 1963; Oxford University, 1970; University of Jerusalem, 1971; Columbia University, 1971; Michigan State University, 1972; University of Chile, 1976; University of Cincinnati, 1976. Honorary Fellow, Modern Language Association (U.S.), 1961; Commandeur de l'Ordre des Lettres et des Arts (France), 1962; Order of Merit, Italy, 1968; Order of Merit, Federal Republic of Germany, 1979; Icelandic Falcon Cross, 1979; Honorary K.B.E. (Knight Commander, order of the British Empire). Member: Argentine National Academy; Uruguayan Academy of Letters. Died: 14 June 1986.

PUBLICATIONS

Collection

Obras completas, edited by José Edmundo Clemente (10 vols.). 1953-60; in one volume, 1974.

Short Stories

Historia univeral de la infamia. 1935; as A Universal History of Infamy, 1971.

El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan [Garden of the Forking Paths]. 1941.

Seis problemas para Isidro Parodi, with Adolfo Bioy Casares, 1942; as Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi, 1983.

Ficciones, 1935-1944. 1944; revised edition, 1956; translated as Ficciones, 1962; as Fictions, 1965.

Dos fantasías memorables, with Casares, under joint pseudonym H. Bustos Domecq. 1946.

El aleph. 1949; as The Aleph and Other Stories, 1933-1969, 1970.

La muerte y la brújula. 1951.

La hermana de Eloísa [Eloisa's Sister], with Luisa Mercedes Levinson. 1955.

Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings, edited by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby. 1962; revised edition, 1964.

Cronicas de Bustos Domecq, with Casares. 1967; as Chronicles of Bustos Domecq, 1979.

El informe de Brodie. 1970; as Dr. Brodie's Report, 1971.

El matrero. 1970.

El congreso. 1971; as The Congress, 1974; as The Congress of the World, 1981.

El libro de arena. 1975; as The Book of Sand, 1977.

Nuevos cuentos de Bustos Domecq, with Casares. 1977.

Novel

Un modelo para la muerte, with Adolfo Bioy Casares. 1946.

Poetry

Fervor de Buenos Aires [Passion for Buenos Aires]. 1923.

Luna de enfrente [Moon across the way]. 1925.

Cuaderno San Martín [San Martin Copybook]. 1929.

Poemas 1923-1943. 1943.

Poemas 1923-1958. 1958.

El hacedor. 1960; as The Dreamtigers, 1963.

Obra poética 1923-1964. 1964.

Para las seis cuerdas. 1965; revised edition, 1970.

Obra poética 1923-1967. 1967.

Nueva antología personal. 1968.

Obra poética (5 vols.). 1969-72.

Elogio de la sombra. 1969; as In Praise of Darkness, 1974.

El otro, el mismo. 1969.

El oro de los tigres. 1972; as The Gold of the Tigers: Selected Later Poems, 1979.

Selected Poems 1923-1967, edited by Norman Thomas di Giovanni. 1972.

La rosa profundo. 1975.

La moneda de hierro. 1976.

Historia de la noche. 1977.

Poemas 1919-1922. 1978.

Obra poética 1923-1976. 1978.

La cifra. 1981.

Antología poética. 1981.

Play

Screenplay:

Los orilleros; El paraíso de los creyentes, with Adolfo Bioy Casares, 1955.

Other

Inquisiciones [Inquisitions] (essays). 1925.

El tamaño de mi esperanza [The Measure of My Hope] (essays). 1926.

El idioma de los argentinos [The Language of the Argentines] (essays). 1928; revised edition, as El lenguaje de Buenos Aires, with José Edmundo Clemente, 1963.

Figari (essays). 1930.

Discusión. 1932.

Las Kennigar (essays). 1933. Historia de la eternidad [History of Eternity] (essays). 1936; revised edition, 1953.

Nueva refutación del tiempo [New Refutation of Time] (essays). 1947.

Aspectos de la literatura gauchesca (essays). 1950.

Antiguas literaturas germánicas, with Delia Ingenieros (essays). 1951; revised edition, with Maria Esther Vázquez, as Literaturas germánicas medievales, 1966.

Otras inquisiciones (essays). 1952; as Other Inquisitions 1937-1952, 1964.

El Martín Fierro, with Margarita Guerrero (essays). 1953.

Leopoldo Lugones, with Bettina Edelberg (essays). 1955.

Manual de zoología fantástica, with Guerrero (essays). 1957; revised edition, as El libro de los seres imaginarios, 1967; translated as The Imaginary Zoo, 1969; revised edition, as The Book of Imaginary Beings, 1969.

Antología personal. 1961; as A Personal Anthology, edited by Anthony Kerrigan, 1968.

The Spanish Language in South America: A Literary Problem; El Gaucho Martín Fierro (lectures). 1964.

Introducción a la literatura inglesa, with Vázquez. 1965; as An Introduction to English Literature, 1974.

Introducción a la literatura nortamericana, with Esther Zemborain de Torres. 1967; as An Introduction to American Literature, 1971.

Nueva antología personal. 1968.

Borges on Writing, edited by Norman Thomas di Giovanni, Daniel Halpern, and Frank MacShane. 1973.

Prólogos. 1975.

Qué es el budismo? [What Is Buddhism?], with Alicia Jurado. 1976.

Libros de sueños. 1976.

Adrogué. 1977.

Borges oral (lectures). 1979.

Prosa completa (2 vols.). 1980.

Siete noches (essays). 1980; as Seven Nights, 1984.

Nueve ensayos dantescos [New Dante Essays]. 1982.

Atlas, with María Komada. 1985; translated as Atlas, 1985.

Los conjurados. 1986.

Biblioteca personal: Prólogos. 1988.

Editor, with Pedro Henriques Urena, Antología clasica de la literatura Argentina. 1937.

Editor, with Silvina Ocampo and Adolfo Bioy Casares, Antología de la literatura fantástica. 1940; as The Book of Fantasy, 1988.

Editor, with Ocampo and Casares, Antología poética Argentina. 1941.

Editor, with Casares, Los mejores cuentos policiales (2 vols.). 1943-51. Editor, with Silvina Bullrich Palenque, El Campadrito: Su destino, sus barrios, su música. 1945.

Editor, with Casares, Prosa y verso, by Francisco de Quevedo. 1948.

Editor and translator, with Casares, Poesía gauchesca (2 vols.). 1955.

Editor, with with Casares, Cuentos breves y extraordinarios. 1955; as Extraordinary Tales, 1971.

Editor, with Casares, Libro del cielo y del infierno. 1960.

Editor, Paulino Lucero, Aniceto y gallo, Santos Vega, by Hilario Ascasubi. 1960.

Editor, Macedonia Fernández (selection). 1961.

Editor, Páginas de historia y de autobiografía, by Edward

Gibbon. 1961.

Editor, Versos, by Evaristo Carriego. 1963.

Editor, with María Komada, Breve antología anglosanjona. 1978.

Editor, Micromegas, by Voltaire. 1979.

Editor, Cuentistas y pintores argentinos. 1985.

Translator, La metamorfosis, by Kafka. 1938.

Translator, Bartleby, by Herman Melville. 1944.

Translator, De los héroes; Hombres representativos, by Carlyle and Emerson. 1949.

Bibliography:

Borges: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography by David William Foster, 1984; The Literary Universe of Borges: An Index to References and Illusions to Persons, Titles, and Places in His Writing by Daniel Balderston, 1986.

Critical Studies:

Borges, The Labyrinth Maker by Ana María Barrenchea, edited and translated by Robert Lima, 1965; The Narrow Act: Borges' Art of Allusion by Ronald J. Christ, 1969; The Mythmaker: A Study of Motif and Symbol in the Short Stories of Borges by Carter Wheelock, 1969; Borges, 1970, and Borges Revisited, 1991, both by Martin S. Stabb; The Cardinal Points of Borges, edited by Lowell Dunham and Ivor Ivask, 1971; Borges by J.M. Cohen, 1973; Prose for Borges, edited by Charles Newman and Mary Kinzie, 1974; Tongues of Fallen Angels: Conversations with Borges by Selden Roman, 1974; Borges: Ficciones by Donald Leslie Shaw, 1976; Paper Tigers: The Ideal Fictions of Borges by John Sturrock, 1977; Borges: Sources and Illumination by Giovanna De Garayalde, 1978; Borges: A Literary Biography by Emir Rodríguez Monegal, 1978; Borges by George R. McMurray, 1980; Borges and His Fiction: A Guide to His Mind and Art by Gene H. Bell-Villada, 1981, revised edition, 1999; Borges at Eighty: Conversations, edited by William Barnstone, 1982; The Prose of Borges: Existentialism and the Dynamics of Surprise, 1984, and The Meaning of Experience in the Prose of Borges, 1988, both by Ion Tudro Agheana; Borges, edited by Harold Bloom, 1986; The Poetry and the Poetics of Borges by Paul Cheselka, 1987; The Emperor's Kites: A Morphology of Borges's Tales by Mary Lusky Friedman, 1987; Critical Essays on Borges, edited by Jaime Alazraki, 1987; Borges and the Kaballah by Jaime Alazraki, 1988; In Memory of Borges, edited by Norman Thomas di Giovanni, 1988; Borges and His Successors: The Borges Impact on Literature and the Arts, edited by Edna Aizenberg, 1990; Borges: A Study of the Short Fiction by Naomi Lindstrom, 1990; A Dictionary of Borges by Evelyn Fishburne, 1990; Jorge Luis Borges: A Writer on the Edge by Beatriz Sarlo Sabajanes, 1993; Readers and Labyrinths: Detective Fiction in Borges, Bustos Domeq, and Eco by Jorge Hernández Martín, 1995; The Man in the Mirror of the Book: A Life of Jorge Borges by James Woodall, 1996; Nightglow: Borges' Poetics of Blindness by Florence L. Yudin, 1997; The Secret of Borges: A Psychoanalytic Inquiry into His Work by Julio Woscoboinik, translated by Dora Carlisky Pozzi, 1998; Humor in Borges by René de Costa, 2000.

* * *

Over the course of the years literary and cultural critics have warned about politicizing Jorge Luis Borges's oeuvre. It has been suggested time after time that Borges's fiction is both apolitical and ahistorical. Those who defend this position have suggested that Borges was never interested in local color but rather universal topics. Others have accused him of withdrawing from the reality of his country and the rest of the world and hiding in a world of fantasy, dreams, and intellectual games. A closer look at Borges's life and work will show a lesser known aspect of the writer's political views and his strong commitment and determination to fight injustice and oppression both in his native Argentina and abroad.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1899, a descendant of patrician Argentines and English immigrants, Borges was raised in a bilingual home. In fact, his very language was English. From early on his father inculcated in him a passion for reading and philosophy. Georgie—as he was known to his family and close friends—was intrigued early on by texts like the Hebrew Bible and the writings of Baruch Spinoza. In 1914 Borges traveled with his family to Europe for the first time and was caught in the middle of World War I. At school in Switzerland he befriended two Jewish boys with whom he shared typical adolescent experiences and a wide array of literary readings. During that time Borges became interested in the German language and read Heinrich Heine's Lyrisches Intermezzo. It is through the German language that the young Borges became interested in everything Jewish. The simplicity of the lexicon in Heine's text allowed the young Borges to become quite familiar with the language and opened up to him the world of German literature and Jewish culture. It was his reading of the German best-seller of the time, Gustav Meyrink's The Golem (1915), that augmented Borges's fascination with Jewish mysticism and the cabala. Borges's fascination with Jewish thought led him to explore the writings of Martin Buber, Fritz Mauthner, Franz Kafka, and Max Brod, among others.

Back in Argentina after a relatively brief stay in Spain, Borges became a part of the leading intellectual circles in Buenos Aires. He befriended several distinguished Argentine Jewish writers, including Alberto Gerchunoff, Cesar Tiempo, and Carlos Grunberg, and printed some of his works in Manuel Gleizer's press. (Gleizer was one of the first Jewish publishers in the country.) Borges's permanent contact with Argentina's largely cosmopolitan Jewish community thus became apparent in both his poetry and his fiction.

In 1934 the journal Crisol, a right-wing periodical, published an offensive and highly anti-Semitic diatribe accusing Borges of "hiding" his Jewish identity and trying to "coverup" his Jewish past. This prompted Borges to reply with an article of his own that was published in El Hogar, a magazine for which he was the editor of a literary section. He entitled the piece "Yo, judío" ("I, the Jew"). In it Borges "thanked" the magazine for considering him to be a member of such a privileged group and toyed with the possibility that his mother's family may have indeed descended from conversos. If up until that time Borges had been driven to write on Jewish topics by positive ideals, in the years that followed his interests in Jewish culture were to be fueled by the ever-increasing waves of anti-Semitism, the rise of Nazism, and, ultimately, the Holocaust.

During World War II Borges wrote several passionate articles against the Nazi regime, which he saw as a threat not only to Germany but to all Western civilization. In the 1940s he wrote two short stories in which he explicitly condemned Germany's expansionist objectives and its Nazi ideology. In "The Secret Miracle" (Ficciones, 1944) and "Deutsches Requiem" (El aleph, 1949) Borges probes the limits of representation and brings to the surface fundamental issues for the understanding of the Holocaust.

—Alejandro Meter

See the essays on "Deutsches Requiem" and "The Secret Miracle."