Denise's page about BORGES

Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires on August 24th, 1899. His unconventional poetry and fiction made him one of the most famous writers in the 20th century. In his writing, Borges creates a fantastic, totally subjective and deeply metaphysical world, he wanted to write common literature filled with danger and local color.

His father was a lawyer and psychology teacher, who taught him philosophy. His mother was a strong, proud woman, who travelled around the world with him. Borge's young sister was his only real childhood friend. They lived in Palermo, Buenos Aires until 1914, when his family moved to Europe. Unfortunately, the war broke out and they were forced to settle in Geneva, where he attended high-school.

Wearing thick glasses and already having a superior education, Borges expected to be a writer at the age of six, when he first wrote a small book with fanciful stories. By 1915, after his grandmother`s death he had decided to be a serious writer.

In 1923, he brought out his first collection of poems. He started a friendship with a woman, Victoria Ocampo, and few months later they got married. After his wife`s death in 1952, he published a major collection of essays, but unfortunately 3 years later he went completely blind. Nevertheless, he continued writing short narrative fiction stories.

He later married his old friend, Elsa Astete Millan, and six years later, his mother died, at the age of 99. Before his own death which happened in 1986, he asked one of his students to write his biography.

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