Master of Argentine letters, builder of "labyrinths" and "libraries"
An Argentine writer, the most intellectual master of the twentieth-century short story. He wrote no novels, only building from one compact tale to the next such dizzying conceits as labyrinths, infinite libraries, and a book of sand that holds everything. He fused philosophy, mathematics, and literature, questioning the bounds of time, infinity, reality, and fiction. Going blind late in life, he said he had always imagined that Paradise "should be a kind of library" — deeply shaping the whole of later Latin American and world fantastic literature.
Borges loved books like life itself, yet at almost the same time he was named director of the National Library he went nearly blind — master of nine hundred thousand books he could no longer read. He wrote calmly that he always imagined "Paradise should be a kind of library." Fate handed him this near-cruel irony, and he turned it into the most tender declaration of love for books and knowledge.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.