Born to a wealthy Argentinean family, Adolfo Bioy Casares was a brilliantly inventive and groundbreaking fiction writer, a close friend and collaborator of Jorge Luis Borges: Casares's diaries include over 1600 pages describing their erudite and clever conversations. His most famous novel, THE INVENTION OF MOREL (1940), tells the story of a political fugitive living on a tropical island who encounters a group of mysterious French tourists who seem to reenact the same events over and over--this science-fiction reverie would inspire Alan Resnais's film LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD (1961). Though Casares remained a relatively obscure writer compared to his famous friend, his work was highly praised and influential among other Latin American experimental writers including not only Borges but also Octavio Paz and Julio Cortazar.
