Jorge Luis Borges (the Great Hispanic Heritage)

Jorge Luis Borges The Great Hispanic heritage Isabel Allende Jorge Luis Borges Miguel de Cervantes César Chávez Roberto Clemente Salvador Dali Francisco Goya Oscar De La Hoya Dolores Huerta Frida Kahlo Jennifer Lopez Gabriel García Márquez José Martí Pedro Martinez Ellen Ochoa Pablo Picasso Tito Puente Juan Ponce de León Diego Rivera Carlos Santana Sammy Sosa Pancho Villa Jorge Luis Borges Tim McNeese Jorge Luis Borges Copyright © 2008 by Infobase Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, contact: Chelsea House An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McNeese, Tim. Jorge Luis Borges / Tim McNeese. p. cm. — (The great Hispanic heritage) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7910-9665-9 (hardcover) 1. Borges, Jorge Luis, 1899-1986. 2. Authors, Argentine—20th century—Biography. I. Title. II. Series. PQ7797.B635Z7766 2008 868’.6209—dc22 [B] 2007032008 Chelsea House books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Chelsea House on the World Wide Web at http://www.chelseahouse.com Text Design by Takeshi Takahashi Cover design by Keith Trego and Jooyoung An Printed in the United States of America Bang EJB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. All links and Web addresses were checked and verified to be correct at the time of publication. Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, some addresses and links may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. Contents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Introduction 6 Argentine Son 13 Off to Europe 25 The Busiest Decade 38 Writer in Transition 54 Poetry and Power 68 Fame and Marriage 81 The Last Years 93 Chronology 106 Notes 110 Bibliography 112 Further Reading 113 Index 115 Introduction He was born under a curse. For the middle-aged Jorge Luis Borges, one of Argentina’s most recognized and honored literary figures of the twentieth century, the world was becoming increasingly dark. Yet it was not in the same sense as with the many great authors who write about human tragedies but in a personal, physical way. Borges’s tragedy was inherited. For generations, members of Borges’s family had struggled as their vision failed, finding their view of everything growing dimmer with time until they were left to struggle in complete darkness. A DARK FAMILY LEGACY Blindness had plagued the Borges family for generations. His father, the elder Jorge Borges, always struggled with bad eyes. Knowing the potential danger to his son, he had not waited long to check his infant’s eyes. Since blue eyes did not run in his family, he was ecstatic when he realized his newborn’s eyes  Introduction were blue. Excitedly, he told his wife, “He is saved. He has your eyes.”1 Unfortunately, he was wrong. He did not realize that all infants’ eyes are blue. The infant Jorge’s eyes would not remain blue. Jorge Luis would become the sixth generation of his family cursed with poor eyesight. For most of his life, he would experience the world on the edge of blindness. It was a handicap that was made more unforgivable by the fact that earlier gener