Los Mejores Relatos Latinoamericanos/the Best Latin America Stories (Paperback)

Borges was a vital figure in Argentinean literature, and considered a major international writer. His ancestors fought in the Argentinean wars for independence. His grandmother was British, and he grew up speaking and reading both Spanish and English. In 1914, his family moved to Europe, and until 1919 Borges went to school in Geneva, mastering French, German, and Latin. He then spent two years in Spain, where he began writing his highly experimental poems. Back in Argentina, Borges and a group of friends founded the avant-garde literary movement known as Ultraismo. His first book of poetry, "Fervor of Buenos Aires", is about his rediscovery of his own city. In 1938, Borges began working as a librarian, and in 1955 he became director of the National Library in Buenos Aires. In 1961 he lectured and gave courses in Argentinean literature at the University of Texas, and in 1967 became the Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard. After Borges became blind in the late 1950s, he composed his poems by memorizing and then dictating them. He believed that philosophy and theology are no less fantastic than fiction itself, and sometimes structured his plots around philosophical and theological arguments, exploring the limitations of human culture. He married his longtime companion, Maria Kodama, weeks before he died, and, when he found out he was terminally ill, he chose to die in Geneva--the city he considered "the most propitious for happiness."