Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known works, Ficciones (transl.鈥塅ictions) and El Aleph (transl.鈥塗he Aleph), published in the 1940s, are collections of short stories exploring motifs such as dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, mirrors, fictional writers and mythology. Borges's works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and have had a major influence on the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature. Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studied at the Coll猫ge de Gen猫ve. The family travelled widely in Europe, including 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. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind by the age of 55. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. By the 1960s, his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages. In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the growing number of English translations, the Latin American Boom, and by the success of Gabriel Garc铆a M谩rquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J.M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists."
Collected Fictions = La biblioteca de Babel = The Library of Babel = The Garden of Forking Paths, Jorge Luis Borges
The Library of Babel is a short story by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges (1899鈥�1986), conceiving of a universe in the form of a vast library containing all possible 410-page books of a certain format and character set. The story was originally published in Spanish in Borges' 1941 collection of stories The Garden of Forking Paths.
Borges' narrator describes how his universe consists of an enormous expanse of adjacent hexagonal rooms, each of which contains the bare necessities for human survival鈥攁nd four walls of bookshelves.
Though the order and content of the books are random and apparently completely meaningless, the inhabitants believe that the books contain every possible ordering of just 25 basic characters (22 letters, the period, the comma, and space).
Though the vast majority of the books in this universe are pure gibberish, the library also must contain, somewhere, every coherent book ever written, or that might ever be written, and every possible permutation or slightly erroneous version of every one of those books.
The narrator notes that the library must contain all useful information, including predictions of the future, biographies of any person, and translations of every book in all languages.
Conversely, for many of the texts, some language could be devised that would make it readable with any of a vast number of different contents.
Qu茅 lindo es leer al Borges lector. Ese que se apasionaba tanto con los libros como nosotros. En este librito se resumen los pr贸logos de la 鈥淏iblioteca di Babele鈥�, un proyecto que encar贸 all谩 por 1977, conjuntamente con Franco Mar铆a Richi y que constaba de 29 vol煤menes en donde aparec铆an muchos cuentos y novelas cortas de los autores m谩s famosos y que a 茅l m谩s le gustaban: entre otros, Franz Kafka, Rudyard Kipling, Henry James, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, H.G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, G.K. Chesterton, Jack London y muchos m谩s. Tambi茅n nos encontramos con los pr贸logos a las traducciones encaradas por Galland y Burton de uno de sus m谩s idolatrados libros: me refiero al 鈥淟ibro de las Mil y una Noches鈥�, al que tantas lecturas apasionadas le dedic贸. Borges supo decir que "La literatura es una de las formas de la felicidad" y en estos pr贸logos tan l煤cidos, brillantes y a la vez humildes disfruta de esa felicidad que heredamos 茅l y todos nosotros gracias a los libros.
Al final de su carrera, Borges mantuvo relaciones con , el due帽o de la editorial italiana del mismo nombre, especializada en revistas est茅ticas y libros de lujo (entre los cuales el fascinante ). La colaboraci贸n entre JLB y FMR dio lugar a una colecci贸n de unos treinta libros de literatura fant谩stica y de precursores del g茅nero de ciencia ficci贸n, seleccionados y presentados por el mismo Borges. Estos libros son, hoy d铆a, dif铆ciles de conseguir fuera de algunas librer铆as especializadas o de c铆rculos de coleccionistas. Tengo la felicidad de tener unos cuantos, traducidos al franc茅s, en mi biblioteca personal.
Algunos de los autores que aparecen en esta colecci贸n son c茅lebres: , , , , , , , , , , el mismo Borges. Otros, no tanto: , , , , , el autor m煤ltiple de . Este peque帽o volumen recopila los pr贸logos escritos por Borges para cada uno de los libros de su colecci贸n. La forma de estos textos es invariablemente cl谩sica, acaso enciclop茅dica: resumen en un par de p谩ginas la vida y la obra del autor. Pero lo propio de la escritura de Borges son los inesperados e infalibles giros con los que espolvorea sus introducciones, y que hacen de su lectura una delicia.
Y con este librito yo concluyo, no sin cierta emoci贸n, la lectura de las obras completas de Jorge Luis Borges, que inici茅 unos diez a帽os atr谩s con , en la colecci贸n de bolsillo 鈥淏iblioteca de autor鈥� de Alianza. Nunca he tenido ni tendr茅 la dicha de conocer ni de o铆r la voz de este inmenso escritor y lector. Siempre seguir谩 siendo mi maestro, quiz谩 mi amigo.