There's so much that can be said about Jorge Luis Borges (born 24 August 1899, died 14 June 1986) that it would be pointless posting a brief biography of him here (if you need one,
his Wikipedia article should suffice).
Essayist, poet, critic, translator, writer - he was all of these. And it would appear that, looking at
his bibliography, we are denied much of his work in the English language.
A quick summary of his fiction:
Many of his most popular stories concern the nature of time, infinity, mirrors, labyrinths, reality, philosophy, and identity. A number of stories focus on fantastic themes, such as a library containing every possible 410-page text ("The Library of Babel"), a man who forgets nothing he experiences ("Funes, the Memorious"), an artifact through which the user can see everything in the universe ("The Aleph"), and a year of time standing still, given to a man standing before a firing squad ("The Secret Miracle"). The same Borges told more and less realistic stories of South American life, stories of folk heroes, streetfighters, soldiers, gauchos, detectives, historical figures. He mixed the real and the fantastic: fact with fiction. On several occasions, especially early in his career, these mixtures sometimes crossed the line into the realm of hoax or literary forgery.
It seems from accounts that pretty much everyone (known and unknown) read for him at one point. And he lives on today through his work, but also through the work of others, notably as thinly disguised characters in
Umberto Eco's
The Name Of The Rose and Mark Z. Danielewski's
House Of Leaves.
Personally, while I find him fascinating - or, perhaps, more his ideas than the man himself - I just haven't read enough of his work.
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