Latin American Writers at Work

Chapter 1 Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires on August 24, 1899. Both of his parents spoke Spanish and English fluently, and "Georgie," as Borges was affectionately called, grew up trilingual, spending much of his childhood exploring his father's extensive library filled with books written in English, Spanish, and French. In 1914 the Borges family moved to Europe-first to Switzerland, where young Borges and his sister Norah attended the College Calvin in Geneva, then to various cities in Spain. In Madrid, Borges began to acquaint himself with burgeoning avant-garde movements such as ultraism, and published poems in local literary magazines. In 1921 the family returned to Argentina, where Borges founded two literary magazines and published his first poetry collections, Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923) and Luna de Enfrente (1925). The poems deal mainly with Borges's exuberant revisit to his hometown and his keen observations of the local color and gaucho tradition that dwelt within. In the early thirties, Borges began publishing collections of essays before he forayed into the genre for which he is perhaps best known and most praised-the short story. His first short story collections, Historia universal de la infamia [A Universal History of Infamy] (1935) and Ficciones (1944), earned him recognition as one of Argentina's greatest writers. Borges won the 1961 Prix Formentor, the International Publisher's Prize, for Ficciones. From 1938 until his retirement in 1973, Borges held several jobs. The first was in a local library, a position that he described as nine years of "solid unhappiness." Not usually known for his political views, Borges began to speak out against then dictator Juan Peron; Peron retaliated by appointing Borges National Poultry Inspector. After Peron's fall, Borges was named director of the National Library of Argentina by the new government and served as professor of German, English, and North American literatures at the University of Buenos Aires. In the meantime, he wrote such notable works as Labyrinths (1962), Elogie de la sombra [In Praise of Darkness] (1969), and El informe de Brodie [Doctor Brodie's Report] (1970)-all collections of essays, poetry, and short stories. During the late seventies and early eighties, at which point Borges was nearly blind, he continued to publish essays and short story collections. In April of 1986, he married his longtime secretary and collaborator Maria Kodama, and died later that same year of liver cancer. This interview was conducted in July 1966, in conversations I held with Borges at his office in the Biblioteca Nacional, of which he is the director. The room, recalling an older Buenos Aires, is not really an office at all, but a large, ornate, high-ceilinged chamber in the newly renovated library. On the walls-but far too high to be easily read, as if hung with diffidence-are various academic certificates and literary citations. There are also several Piranesi etchings, bringing to mind the nightmarish Piranesi ruin in Borges's story "The Immortal." Over the fireplace is a large portrait; when I asked Borges's secretary, Miss Susana Quinteros, about the portrait, she responded in a fitting, if unintentional, echo of a basic Borgesian theme: "No importa. It's a reproduction of another painting." At diagonally opposite corners of the room are two large, revolving bookcases which contain, Miss Quinteros explained, books Borges frequently consults, all arranged in a certain order and never varied so that Borges, who is nearly blind, can find them by position and size. The dictionaries, for instance, are set together, among them an old, sturdily rebacked, well-worn Anglo-Saxon dictionary. Among the other volumes, ranging from books in German and English on theology and philosophy to literature and history, are the completeParis Review Staff is the author of 'Latin American Writers at Work' with ISBN 9780679773498 and ISBN 0679773495.