Argentine poet, essayist, and short-story writer whose tales of fantasy and dreamworlds are considered classics of 20th-century world literature. Borges is profoundly influenced by European culture, English literature, and such thinkers as Berkeley. Most of Borges's tales can only be understood in universal terms - the circular labyrinth as a symbol of life is found in several of his works. Borges achieved international fame when he shared the International Publishers' Formentor Prize along with Samuel Beckett. Although his name was mentioned in speculations concerning a Nobel Prize, Borges never became a Nobel Laureate.

"When the end draws near, there no longer remain any remembered images; only words remain. It is not strange that time should have confused the words that once represented me with those that were symbols of the fate of he who accompanied me for so many centuries. I have been Homer; shortly, I shall be On One, like Ulysses; shortly, I shall be all men; I shall be dead."
(from 'The Immortal')

Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires. His family included British ancestry and he learned English before Spanish. His father, a lawyer and educator, explored the works of the Irish philosopher George Berkeley with his son and demonstrated the paradoxes of Zeno on a chessboard. In 1914 Borges moved with his family to Geneva, where he learned French and German and received his B.A. from the Collège of Geneva.

From 1918 Borges resided in Spain, where he was a member of the avant-garde Ultraist literary group. In 1921 Borges settled in Buenos Aires and started his carees as a writer, publishing poems and essays in literary journals. He was co-founding editor of the journals Proa (1924-26) and Sur, and contributed to Prisma. He served as literary adviser for the publishing house Emecé Editores, and from 1936 to 1939 wrote weekly columns for El Hogar. As a critic he wrote original interpretations of the Argentine classics and displayed a vast knowledge of European and American literature.

As a poet Borges made his debut with FERVOR DE BUENOS AIRES, which appeared in 1923. In 1938 his father died, a great blow because the two had been unusually close. Borges also suffered a severe head wound, and after recovering the experience unleashed deep forces of creativity. His first collection of intricate and fantasy-woven short stories, EL JARDÍN DE SENDEROS QUE SE BIFURCAN, was published in 1941. Later collections include FICCIÓNES (1944), EL ALEPH (1949), and EL EL HACEDOR (1960). Borges's interest in fantasy was shared by another well-known Argentine writer of fiction, Adolfo Bioy Casares, with whom Borges co-authored several collections of tales between 1942 and 1967.

From 1939 to 1946 Borges was a municipal librarian, but he was fired from his post by the Péron regime.Between 1946 and 1954 he was a poultry inspector for the Buenos Aires Municipal Market.During this period an attempt was made to bomb the house where Borges and his mother lived. After Peron's deposition Borges was appointed Director of the National Library (1955-1973). "I speak of God's splendid irony in granting me at once 800 000 books and darkness," Borges noted alluding to his now almost complete blindness. Borges was also professor of literature at the University of Buenos Aires, and taught there from 1955 to 1970. In 1961 Borges shared the Prix Formentor with Samuel Beckett, and started his series of visits to countries all around the world, and continued travelling until his death.

"A librarian wearing dark glasses asked him: 'What are you looking for?' Hladik answered: 'I am looking for God.' The librarian said to him: 'God is in one of the letters on one of the pages of one of the four hundred thousand volumes of the Clementine. My fathers and the fathers of my fathers have searched for this letter; I have grown blind seeking it.'"
(from 'The Secret Miracle')

In 1967 Borges began a five-year period of collaboration with Norman Thomas di Giovanni, and found new fame in the English-speaking world. When Juan Perón was again elected president in 1973, Borges resigned as director of the National Library. Despite his opposition to Perón and later to the junta, his support of liberal causes was considered too ambiguous.

In the last decades of his life, Borges, who had suffered eye problems, became totally blind. He had a congenital defect that had afflicted several generations on his father's side of the family. However, he published several books, among them EL LIBRO DE LOS SERES IMAGINARIOS (1967), EL INFORME DE BRODIE (1970), and EL LIBRO DE ARENA (1975). After the death of his mother, who had been his constant companion, Borges began travelling. Borges died on June 14, 1986 in Geneva, Switzerland. He was twice married: In 1967 he married his old friend, the recently widowed Elsa Asteta Millán, a relationship that lasted three years. After the divorce, Borges moved back in with his mother. In his last years Borger lived with María Kodama, whom he married in 1986. Together, they travelled around the world, producing an account of their journey in 1984, with text by Borges and photographs by Kodoma.

Borges's fictional universe stems from his varied and often esoteric readings in literaure, philosophy, and theology. The philosophical theories of Berkeley and Schopenhauer greatly influenced his writings, and the mysterious theological labyrinths of Gnosticism and the Cabala reinforce many of his plots. Borges see's man's search for meaning in an infinite universe absurd, he utilizes old myths to convey contemporary themes, and adds footnotes in order to feign authenticity or to mock erudition. For Borges concrete reality may consist only of mental perceptions. His classical short story 'La muerte y la brújula' portrays an excessively rational detective, Lönnrot (referring to the philologist/poet Elias Lönnrot, the collector of Kalevala poems), who finds himself trapped in a cerebral labyrinths of his own making, while attempting to solve a series of crimes. In 'La Biblioteca de Babel' the symmetrically structured library represents the universe as it is conceived by rational man, and the library's illegible books refer to man's ignorance. In 'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius' Borges invents a whole universe based on an imaginary encyclopeadia. The narrator states, that 'Tlön is surely a labyrinth, but it is a labyrinth devised by men, a labyrinth destined to be deciphered by men."

As an essayist Borges adopted a literary culture almost alien to Latin American literature, and brought attention to ancient philosophers and mystics, Jewish cabbalists and gnostics, forgotten French poets, the Finnish national epos Kalevala, and above all such English writers as John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, G.K. Chesterton and John Keats. His output of essays is not extensive. His key books are DISCUSIÓN (1932), HISTORIA DE LA ETERNIDAD (1936), and OTRAS INQUISICIONES (1952).One characteristic of Borges's essays is that, on interpreting other writers' texts he gives them new meaning, and invites the reader to think in a way not commonly accepted. When many Latin American writers dealt with political or social subjects, Borges represents a quiet intellectual dissidence.

For further reading: La expression de la irrealidad en la obra de Jorge Luis Borges by A.M. Barrenechea (1957); Borges, the Labyrinth Maker by María Ana Barrenechea (1965); La prosa narrativa de Jorge Luis Borges by J. Alazraki (1968); Borges el poeta by G. Sucre (1968); Paper Tigers: the Ideal Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges by J. Sturrock (1977); Jorge Luis Borges by G.R. McMurray (1980), Jorge Luis Borges by Donald Yates (1985); The Aleph Weaver by Edna Aizenberg (1984); Jorge Luis Borges, ed. by Harold Bloom (1986); The Poetry and Poetics of Jorge Luis Borges by Paul Cheselka (1986); A Concordance to the Works of Jorge Luis Borges 1899-1986 by Rob Isbister and Peter Standish (1992); Jorge Luis Borges by Beatriz Sarle (1993); A Dictionary of Borges by Evelyn Fishburn and Psiche Hughes (1990) - See Magic Realism: García Márquez, Salman Rushdie.

• FERVOR DE BUENOS AIRES, 1923
• LUNA DE ENFRENTE, 1923
• INQUISICIONES, 1925
• EL TAMAÑO DE MI ESPERANZA, 1926
• EL IDIOMA DE LOS ARGENTINOS, 1928
• CUADERNOS SAN MARTÍN, 1929
• EVARISTO CARRIEGO, 1930
• DISCUSIÓN, 1932
• LAS KENNIGAR, 1933
• HISTORIA UNIVERSAL DE LA INFAMIA, 1935 - A Universal History of Infamy
• HISTORIA DE LA ETERNIDAD, 1936
• EL JARDÍN DE SENDEROS QUE SE BIFURCAN, 1941
• SEIS PROBLEMAS PARA DON ISIDRO PARODI, 1942 - Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi
• EL JARDIN DE SENDEROS QUE SE BIFURCAN, 1942
• FICCIONES, 1944
• DOS FANTASÍAS MEMORABLES, 1946
• UN MODELO PARA LA MUERTE, 1946
• NUEVA REFUTACÍON DEL TIEMPO, 1947
• ASPECTOS DE LA LITERARA GAUCHESCA, 1950
• LA MUERTE Y LA BRÚJULA, 1951
• ANTIGUAS LITERATURAS GERMÁNICAS, 1951 (with Delia Ingenieros)
• OTRAS INQUISICIONES 1937-1952, 1952 - Other Inquisitions, 1937-1952
• LOS ORILLEROS, 1955
• MANUAL DE ZOOLOGIA FANTASTICA, 1957 - The Book of Imaginary Beings (1969)
• LEOPOLDO LUGONES, 1957 · OBRAS COMPLETAS, VIII 1954-60
• LIBRO DEL CIELO Y DEL INFIERNO, 1960
• EL HACEDOR, 1960 - The Doer/The Dreamtigers
• ANTOLOGÍA PERSONAL, 1961 - A Personal Anthology
• MACEDONIO FERNÁDEZ, 1963
• EL OTRO, EL MISMO, 1964
• OBRAS COMPLETAS III, 1964
• PARA LAS SEIS CUERDAS, 1965
• INTRODUCCIÓN A LA LITERATURA INGLESA, 1965 (with María Esther Vásquez)
• LITERATURAS GERMÁNICAS MEDIAVALES, 1966 (with María Esther Vásquez)
• CRÓNICAS DE BUSTOS DOMECQ, 1967 - Chronicles of Bustos Domecq
• EL LIBRO DE LOS SERES IMAGINARIOS, 1967 - The Book of Imaginary Beings
• MUEVA ANTOLOGÍA PERRSONAL, 1968
• ELOGIO DE LA SOMBRA, 1969
• EL OTRO, EL MISMO, 1969
• EL INFORME DE BRODIE, 1970 - Dr. Brodie's Report
• EL CONGRESO, 1971
• EL ORO DE LOS TIGRES, 1972 - The Gold of Tigers
• Borges on Writing, 1973
• OBRAS COMPLETAS, 1974
• EL LIBRO DE ARENA, 1975 - The Book of Sand
• LA ROSA PROFUNDA, 1975
• PRÓLOGOS CON UN PRÓLOGO DE PRÓLOGOS, 1975
• LA MONEDA DE HIERRO, 1976
• LIBRO DE SUEÑOS, 1976
• ANDROGUÉ, 1977
• ASESINOS DE PAPEL, 1977
• HISTORIA DE LA NOCHE, 1977
• LA ROSA DE PARACELSO, 1977
• TIGRES AZULES, 1977
• OBRAS COMPLETAS EN COLABORARACIÓN, 1979
• PROSA COMPLETA, 1980
• SIETE NOCHES, 1980 - Seven Nights
• LA CIFRA, 1981
• NUEVE ENSAYOS DANTESCOS, 1982
• VEINTICINCO AGOSTO, 1983
• OBRA POETICA, 1923-1977, 1983
• Y OTROS CUENTOS, 1983
• LOS CONJURADOS, 1985
• TEXTOS CAUTIVOS, 1986
• EL ALEPH BORGIANO, 1987
• BORGES, EL JUDAISMO E ISRAEL, 1988
• BIBLIOTECA PERSONAL, 1988
• OBRAS COMPLETAS, 1989 (2 vols.)