Como de Quincey y tantos otros, he sabido, antes de haber escrito una sola linea, que mi destino seria literario. Mi primer libro data de 1923; mis Obras Completas, ahora, reunen la labor de medio siglo. No se que merito tendran, pero me place comprobar la variedad de temas que abarcan. La patria, los azares de los mayores, las literaturas que honran las lenguas de los hombres, las filosofias que he tratado de penetrar, los atardeceres, los ocios, las desgarradas orillas de mi ciudad, mi extraña vida cuya posible justificacion esta en estas páginas, los sueños olvidados y recuperados, el tiempo... La prosa convive con el verso; acaso para la imaginacion ambas son iguales. Felizmente, no nos debemos a una sola tradicion; podemos aspirar a todas. Mis limitaciones personales y mi curiosidad dejan aqui su testimonio. J.L.B.
Author
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo, usually referred to as Jorge Luis Borges (Spanish pronunciation: [xoɾxe lwis boɾxes]), was an Argentine writer and poet born in Buenos Aires. In 1914, his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school and traveled to Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in Surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. Borges was fluent in several languages. He was a target of political persecution during the Peron regime, and supported the military juntas that overthrew it. Due to a hereditary condition, Borges became blind in his late fifties. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library (Biblioteca Nacional) and professor of Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first International Publishers' Prize Prix Formentor. His work was translated and published widely in the United States and in Europe. He died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1986. J. M. Coetzee said of Borges: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish American novelists."
