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Adolfo Bioy Casares

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136-532: Adolfo Bioy Casares ( Spanish pronunciation: [aˈðolfo ˈβjoj kaˈsaɾes] ; 15 September 1914 – 8 March 1999) was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, diarist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges . He is the author of the Fantastique novel The Invention of Morel . Adolfo Bioy Casares was born on September 15, 1914, in Buenos Aires ,

272-752: A Proto-Celtic form reconstructed as * kwar-is-io -. Alternatively, Pierre-Yves Lambert proposed to translate Parisii as the 'spear people', by connecting the first element to the Old Irish carr ('spear'), derived from an earlier * kwar-sā . In any case, the city's name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology . Residents of the city are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens ( [paʁizjɛ̃] ). They are also pejoratively called Parigots ( [paʁiɡo] ). The Parisii ,

408-528: 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

544-450: A " Spencerian anarchist who believes in the individual and not in the State" due to his father's influence. In an interview with Richard Burgin during the late 1960s, Borges described himself as a "mild" adherent of classical liberalism . He further recalled that his opposition to communism and to Marxism was absorbed in his childhood, stating: "Well, I have been brought up to think that

680-737: A "very mean man" for unconditionally supporting the Soviet Union and demonizing the United States. Borges commented about Neruda, "Now he knows that's rubbish." In the same interview, Borges also criticized famed poet and playwright Federico García Lorca , who was abducted by Nationalist soldiers and executed without trial during the Spanish Civil War . In Borges's opinion, Lorca's poetry and plays, when examined against his tragic death, appeared better than they actually were. In 1934, Argentine ultra-nationalists , sympathetic to Adolf Hitler and

816-451: A Chinese professor in England, Dr. Yu Tsun, who spies for Germany during World War I, in an attempt to prove to the authorities that an Asian person is able to obtain the information that they seek. A combination of book and maze, it can be read in many ways. Through it, Borges arguably invented the hypertext novel and went on to describe a theory of the universe based upon the structure of such

952-574: A bitter dispute with the French publisher Gallimard regarding the republication of the complete works of Borges in French, with Pierre Assouline in Le Nouvel Observateur (August 2006) calling her "an obstacle to the dissemination of the works of Borges". Kodama took legal action against Assouline, considering the remark unjustified and defamatory, asking for a symbolic compensation of one euro. Kodama also rescinded all publishing rights for existing collections of his work in English, including

1088-428: A collection of translations of popular English detective fiction , a genre that Borges greatly admired. In 2006, Borges , a biographical volume of more than 1600 pages from Bioy Casares' journals, revealed many additional details of the friendship shared by the two writers. Bioy Casares had already prepared and corrected the texts some time previously, but he never was able to publish them himself. In 1940, he published

1224-530: A fair amount of sunshine. Each year there are a few days when the temperature rises above 32 °C (90 °F). Longer periods of more intense heat sometimes occur, such as the heat wave of 2003 when temperatures exceeded 30 °C (86 °F) for weeks, reached 40 °C (104 °F) on some days, and rarely cooled down at night. Spring and autumn have, on average, mild days and cool nights, but are changing and unstable. Surprisingly warm or cool weather occurs frequently in both seasons. In winter, sunshine

1360-591: A family friend, Macedonio Fernández , became a major influence on Borges. The two would preside over discussions in cafés, at country retreats, or in Fernandez's tiny apartment in the Balvanera district. He appears by name in Borges's Dialogue about a Dialogue , in which the two discuss the immortality of the soul. In 1933, Borges gained an editorial appointment at Revista Multicolor de los Sábados (the literary supplement of

1496-467: A first-rate human mind stripped of all foundations of religious or ideological certainty – a mind turned wholly inward on itself. His stories are inbent and hermetic, with the oblique terror of a game whose rules are unknown and its stakes everything." Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was born into an educated middle-class family on 24 August 1899. They were in comfortable circumstances but not wealthy enough to live in downtown Buenos Aires , so

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1632-468: A house in San Isidro belonging to Victoria Ocampo . There, she often hosted different international figures and organized cultural celebrations, one of which brought Borges and Bioy Casares together. Bioy Casares recalled that on that particular occasion, the two writers stepped away from the rest of the guests, only to be reprimanded by Ocampo. This reproach provoked them to leave the gathering and return to

1768-702: A huge and emotional crowd down the Champs Élysées towards Notre Dame de Paris and made a rousing speech from the Hôtel de Ville . In the 1950s and the 1960s, Paris became one front of the Algerian War for independence; in August 1961, the pro-independence FLN targeted and killed 11 Paris policemen, leading to the imposition of a curfew on Muslims of Algeria (who, at that time, were French citizens). On 17 October 1961, an unauthorised but peaceful protest demonstration of Algerians against

1904-399: A la vez los libros y la noche. No one should read self-pity or reproach Into this statement of the majesty Of God; who with such splendid irony, Granted me books and night at one touch. His later collection of poetry, Elogio de la Sombra ( In Praise of Darkness ), develops this theme. In 1956 the University of Cuyo awarded Borges the first of many honorary doctorates and

2040-453: A large house with an English library of over one thousand volumes; Borges would later remark that "if I were asked to name the chief event in my life, I should say my father's library." His father gave up practicing law due to the failing eyesight that would eventually affect his son. In 1914, the family moved to Geneva , Switzerland, and spent the next decade in Europe. In Geneva, Borges Haslam

2176-546: A novel. Composed of stories taking up over sixty pages, the book was generally well received, but El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan failed to garner for him the literary prizes many in his circle expected. Victoria Ocampo dedicated a large portion of the July 1942 issue of Sur to a "Reparation for Borges." Numerous leading writers and critics from Argentina and throughout the Spanish-speaking world contributed writings to

2312-409: A political tract. It was meant to stand for the fact that there was something tragic in the fate of a real Nazi. Except that I wonder if a real Nazi ever existed. At least, when I went to Germany, I never met one. They were all feeling sorry for themselves and wanted me to feel sorry for them as well." In 1946, Argentine President Juan Perón began transforming Argentina into a one-party state with

2448-537: A real Nazi might be like. I mean someone who thought of violence as being praiseworthy for its own sake. Then I thought that this archetype of the Nazis wouldn't mind being defeated; after all, defeats and victories are mere matters of chance. He would still be glad of the fact, even if the Americans and British won the war. Naturally, when I am with Nazis, I find they are not my idea of what a Nazi is, but this wasn't meant to be

2584-563: A soldier of the Buenos Aires Army. A descendant of the Argentine lawyer and politician Francisco Narciso de Laprida , Acevedo Laprida fought in the battles of Cepeda in 1859, Pavón in 1861, and Los Corrales in 1880. Acevedo Laprida died of pulmonary congestion in the house where his grandson Jorge Luis Borges was born. According to a study by Antonio Andrade, Jorge Luis Borges had Portuguese ancestry: Borges's great-grandfather, Francisco,

2720-755: A sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones , inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on the Île de la Cité , which gradually became an important trading centre. The Parisii traded with many river towns (some as far away as the Iberian Peninsula) and minted their own coins. The Romans conquered the Paris Basin in 52 BC and began their settlement on Paris's Left Bank . The Roman town

2856-1295: A work of "reasoned imagination" and linked it to H. G. Wells ' oeuvre . Both Borges and Octavio Paz described the novel as "perfect". The story is held to be the inspiration for Alan Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad and an influence on the TV series Lost . Novels and novellas Short story collections Generally, these Spanish-language collections have not been systematically translated into English. English language collections include: Essays Miscellanies (mixed collections of stories, poems, essays, reflections, aphorisms, etc.) Dictionary of Argentinean slang Letters Diaries Works written in collaboration with Jorge Luis Borges Dos fantasías memorables and Un modelo para la muerte were originally published in private printings of only 300 copies. The first commercial printings were published in 1970. Works written in collaboration with Silvina Ocampo Works written in collaboration with Daniel Martino Screenplays written in collaboration with Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( / ˈ b ɔːr h ɛ s / BOR -hess ; Spanish: [ˈxoɾxe ˈlwis ˈboɾxes] ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986)

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2992-764: A writer's duty is to be a writer, and if he can be a good writer, he is doing his duty. Besides, I think of my own opinions as being superficial. For example, I am a Conservative, I hate the Communists, I hate the Nazis, I hate the anti-Semites, and so on; but I don't allow these opinions to find their way into my writings—except, of course, when I was greatly elated about the Six-Day War . Generally speaking, I think of keeping them in watertight compartments. Everybody knows my opinions, but as for my dreams and my stories, they should be allowed their full freedom, I think. I don't want to intrude into them, I'm writing fiction, not fables." In

3128-605: Is La invención de Morel ( The Invention of Morel ). It is the story of a man who, evading justice, escapes to an island said to be infected with a mysterious fatal disease. Struggling to understand why everything seems to repeat, he realizes that all the people he sees there are actually recordings, made with a special machine, invented by Morel, which is able to record not only three-dimensional images, but also voices and scents, making it all indistinguishable from reality. The story mixes realism , fantasy , science fiction and terror . Borges wrote an introduction in which he called it

3264-517: Is Montmartre at 130 m (427 ft). Excluding the outlying parks of Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes , Paris covers an oval measuring about 87 km (34 sq mi) in area, enclosed by the 35 km (22 mi) ring road, the Boulevard Périphérique . Paris' last major annexation of outlying territories in 1860 gave it its modern form, and created the 20 clockwise-spiralling arrondissements (municipal boroughs). From

3400-767: Is 450 km (280 mi) southeast of London, 287 km (178 mi) south of Calais , 305 km (190 mi) southwest of Brussels , 774 km (481 mi) north of Marseille , 385 km (239 mi) northeast of Nantes , and 135 km (84 mi) southeast of Rouen . Paris has an oceanic climate within the Köppen climate classification , typical of western Europe. This climate type features cool winters, with frequent rain and overcast skies, and mild to warm summers. Very hot and very cold temperatures and weather extremes are rare in this type of climate. Summer days are usually mild and pleasant, with average temperatures between 15 and 25 °C (59 and 77 °F), and

3536-435: Is blindly collaborating with the inevitable armies that will annihilate him, as the metal vultures and the dragon (which must have known that they were monsters) collaborated, mysteriously, with Hercules ." In 1946, Borges published the short story " Deutsches Requiem ", which masquerades as the last testament of a condemned Nazi war criminal named Otto Dietrich zur Linde. In a 1971 conference at Columbia University , Borges

3672-719: Is derived from its early inhabitants, the Parisii , a Gallic tribe from the Iron Age and the Roman period . The meaning of the Gaulish ethnonym remains debated. According to Xavier Delamarre , it may derive from the Celtic root pario- ('cauldron'). Alfred Holder interpreted the name as 'the makers' or 'the commanders', by comparing it to the Welsh peryff ('lord, commander'), both possibly descending from

3808-571: Is likely to come from ancient Jewish descent, from a millennium ago. Both before and during the Second World War , Borges regularly published essays attacking the Nazi police state and its racist ideology. His outrage was fueled by his deep love for German literature . In an essay published in 1937, Borges attacked the Nazi Party's use of children's books to inflame antisemitism. He wrote, "I don't know if

3944-490: Is presented to them ready-made. There are even agencies of the State that supply them with opinions, passwords, slogans, and even idols to exalt or cast down according to the prevailing wind or in keeping with the directives of the thinking heads of the single party ." In later years, Borges frequently expressed contempt for Marxist and communist authors, poets, and intellectuals. In an interview with Burgin, Borges referred to Chilean poet Pablo Neruda as "a very fine poet" but

4080-440: Is scarce. Days are cool, and nights are cold but generally above freezing, with low temperatures around 3 °C (37 °F). Light night frosts are quite common, but the temperature seldom dips below −5 °C (23 °F). Paris sometimes sees light snow or flurries with or without accumulation. Paris has an average annual precipitation of 641 mm (25.2 in), and experiences light rainfall distributed evenly throughout

4216-590: Is the capital and largest city of France . With an estimated population of 2,102,650 residents in January 2023 in an area of more than 105 km (41 sq mi), Paris is the fourth-largest city in the European Union and the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2022. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance , diplomacy , commerce , culture , fashion , and gastronomy . Because of its leading role in

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4352-492: Is the fact that they breed idiocy. Bellboys babbling orders, portraits of caudillos , prearranged cheers or insults, walls covered with names, unanimous ceremonies, mere discipline usurping the place of clear thinking ... Fighting these sad monotonies is one of the duties of a writer. Need I remind readers of Martín Fierro or Don Segundo that individualism is an old Argentine virtue. Paris, France Paris ( French pronunciation: [paʁi] )

4488-527: Is tragedy there." In a 1967 interview with Burgin, Borges recalled how his interactions with Argentina's Nazi sympathisers led him to create the story. He recalled, "And then I realized that those people that were on the side of Germany, that they never thought of German victories or the German glory. What they really liked was the idea of the Blitzkrieg , of London being on fire, of the country being destroyed. As to

4624-599: The Champs-Élysées extended the city west to Étoile , while the working-class neighbourhood of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine on the eastern side of the city grew increasingly crowded with poor migrant workers from other regions of France. Paris was the centre of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity, known as the Age of Enlightenment . Diderot and D'Alembert published their Encyclopédie in 1751, before

4760-785: The College of Sorbonne , and a palace for himself, the Palais-Cardinal . After Richelieu's death in 1642, it was renamed the Palais-Royal . Due to the Parisian uprisings during the Fronde civil war, Louis XIV moved his court to a new palace, Versailles , in 1682. Although no longer the capital of France, arts and sciences in the city flourished with the Comédie-Française , the Academy of Painting, and

4896-634: The European Space Agency , the European Banking Authority and the European Securities and Markets Authority . The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris. The 81,000-seat Stade de France , built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup , is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis . Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on

5032-707: The French Academy of Sciences . To demonstrate that the city was safe from attack, the king had the city walls demolished and replaced with tree-lined boulevards that would become the Grands Boulevards . Other marks of his reign were the Collège des Quatre-Nations , the Place Vendôme , the Place des Victoires , and Les Invalides . Paris grew in population from about 400,000 in 1640 to 650,000 in 1780. A new boulevard named

5168-640: The Grand Paris project, to integrate Paris more closely with the towns in the region around it. After many modifications, the new area, named the Metropolis of Grand Paris , with a population of 6.7 million, was created on 1 January 2016. In 2011, the City of Paris and the national government approved the plans for the Grand Paris Express , totalling 205 km (127 mi) of automated metro lines to connect Paris,

5304-551: The Imagists . His first poem, "Hymn to the Sea", written in the style of Walt Whitman , was published in the magazine Grecia . While in Spain, he met such noted Spanish writers as Rafael Cansinos Assens and Ramón Gómez de la Serna . In 1921, Borges returned with his family to Buenos Aires. He had little formal education, no qualifications and few friends. He wrote to a friend that Buenos Aires

5440-484: The Montgolfier Brothers launched the first manned flight in a hot air balloon on 21 November 1783. Paris was the financial capital of continental Europe, as well the primary European centre for book publishing, fashion and the manufacture of fine furniture and luxury goods. On 22 October 1797, Paris was also the site of the first parachute jump in history, by Garnerin . In the summer of 1789, Paris became

5576-473: The Nazi Party , asserted Borges was secretly Jewish and by implication not truly Argentinian. Borges responded with the essay " Yo, Judío " ("I, a Jew"), a reference to the old phrase "Yo, Argentino" ("I, an Argentine") uttered by potential victims during pogroms against Argentine Jews to signify one was not Jewish. In the essay, Borges declares he would be proud to be a Jew, and remarks that any pure Castilian

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5712-517: The Paris Commune held power for two months, before being harshly suppressed by the French army during the " Bloody Week " at the end of May 1871. In the late 19th century, Paris hosted two major international expositions: the 1889 Universal Exposition , which featured the new Eiffel Tower, was held to mark the centennial of the French Revolution; and the 1900 Universal Exposition gave Paris

5848-579: The Pont Alexandre III , the Grand Palais , the Petit Palais and the first Paris Métro line. Paris became the laboratory of Naturalism ( Émile Zola ) and Symbolism ( Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine ), and of Impressionism in art ( Courbet , Manet , Monet , Renoir ). By 1901, the population of Paris had grown to about 2,715,000. At the beginning of the century, artists from around

5984-611: The Pont des Arts . During the Restoration , the bridges and squares of Paris were returned to their pre-Revolution names; the July Revolution in 1830 (commemorated by the July Column on the Place de la Bastille ) brought to power a constitutional monarch, Louis Philippe I . The first railway line to Paris opened in 1837, beginning a new period of massive migration from the provinces to

6120-544: The Quixote ," came out in May 1939. One of his most famous works, "Menard" examines the nature of authorship, as well as the relationship between an author and his historical context. His first collection of short stories, El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan ( The Garden of Forking Paths ), appeared in 1941, composed mostly of works previously published in Sur . The title story concerns

6256-750: The Seine in the city centre has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991. Paris is home to several United Nations organizations including UNESCO, as well as other international organizations such as the OECD , the OECD Development Centre , the International Bureau of Weights and Measures , the International Energy Agency , the International Federation for Human Rights , along with European bodies such as

6392-551: The Shinto beliefs of her father or the Catholicism of her mother. Kodama "had always regarded Borges as an Agnostic, as she was herself", but given the insistence of his questioning, she offered to call someone more "qualified". Borges responded, "You are asking me if I want a priest." He then instructed her to call two clergymen, a Catholic priest, in memory of his mother, and a Protestant minister, in memory of his English grandmother. He

6528-597: The Siege of Paris (885–886) , for which the then Count of Paris ( comte de Paris ), Odo of France , was elected king of West Francia . From the Capetian dynasty that began with the 987 election of Hugh Capet , Count of Paris and Duke of the Franks ( duc des Francs ), as king of a unified West Francia, Paris gradually became the largest and most prosperous city in France. By the end of

6664-417: The University of Virginia (UVA) in the U.S. influenced a group of students among whom was Jared Loewenstein, who would later become founder and curator of the Jorge Luis Borges Collection at UVA, one of the largest repositories of documents and manuscripts pertaining to Borges's early works. In 1984, he travelled to Athens, Greece, and later to Rethymnon, Crete, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate from

6800-454: The arts and sciences and its early adaptation of extensive street lighting, it became known as the City of Light in the 19th century. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region , or Paris Region, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 inhabitants in January 2023, or about 19% of the population of France. The Paris Region had a nominal GDP of €765 billion (US$ 1.064 trillion when adjusted for PPP ) in 2021,

6936-449: 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 Collège de Genève . 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

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7072-460: The phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger . In this vein, Borges biographer Edwin Williamson underlines the danger of inferring an autobiographically inspired basis for the content or tone of certain of his works: books, philosophy, and imagination were as much a source of real inspiration to him as his own lived experience, if not more so. From the first issue, Borges was a regular contributor to Sur , founded in 1931 by Victoria Ocampo . It

7208-416: The Île Saint-Louis and the larger Île de la Cité , which form the oldest part of Paris. The river's mouth on the English Channel ( La Manche ) is about 233 mi (375 km) downstream from Paris. Paris is spread widely on both banks of the river. Overall, Paris is relatively flat, and the lowest point is 35 m (115 ft) above sea level . Paris has several prominent hills, the highest of which

7344-421: The "reparation" project. With his vision beginning to fade in his early thirties and unable to support himself as a writer, Borges began a new career as a public lecturer. He became an increasingly public figure, obtaining appointments as president of the Argentine Society of Writers and as professor of English and American Literature at the Argentine Association of English Culture. His short story " Emma Zunz "

7480-450: The 12th century, Paris had become the political, economic, religious, and cultural capital of France. The Palais de la Cité , the royal residence, was located at the western end of the Île de la Cité. In 1163, during the reign of Louis VII , Maurice de Sully , bishop of Paris, undertook the construction of the Notre Dame Cathedral at its eastern extremity. After the marshland between the river Seine and its slower 'dead arm' to its north

7616-452: The 1860 area of 78 km (30 sq mi), the city limits were expanded marginally to 86.9 km (33.6 sq mi) in the 1920s. In 1929, the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes forest parks were annexed to the city, bringing its area to about 105 km (41 sq mi). The metropolitan area is 2,300 km (890 sq mi). Measured from the 'point zero' in front of its Notre-Dame cathedral , Paris by road

7752-486: The 1920s and 1930s, Borges was a vocal supporter of Hipólito Yrigoyen and the social democratic Radical Civic Union . In 1945, Borges signed a manifesto calling for an end to military rule and the establishment of political liberty and democratic elections. By the 1960s, he had grown more skeptical of democracy. During a 1971 conference at Columbia University , a creative writing student asked Borges what he regarded as "a writer's duty to his time". Borges replied, "I think

7888-482: The 1980s, towards the end of his life, Borges regained his earlier faith in democracy and held it out as the only hope for Argentina. In 1983, Borges applauded the election of the Radical Civic Union's Raúl Alfonsín and welcomed the end of military rule with the following words: "I once wrote that democracy is the abuse of statistics ... On October 30, 1983, Argentine democracy refuted me splendidly. Splendidly and resoundingly." Borges recurrently declared himself

8024-782: The American translator Norman Thomas di Giovanni , through whom he became better known in the English-speaking world. Di Giovanni contended that Borges's popularity was due to his writing with multiple languages in mind and deliberately using Latin words as a bridge from Spanish to English. Borges continued to publish books, among them El libro de los seres imaginarios ( Book of Imaginary Beings , 1967, co-written with Margarita Guerrero ), El informe de Brodie ( Dr. Brodie's Report , 1970), and El libro de arena ( The Book of Sand , 1975 ). He lectured prolifically. Many of these lectures were anthologized in volumes such as Siete noches ( Seven Nights ) and Nueve ensayos dantescos ( Nine Dantesque Essays ). His presence in 1967 on campus at

8160-485: The Buenos Aires newspaper Crítica ), where he first published the pieces collected as Historia universal de la infamia ( A Universal History of Infamy ) in 1935. The book includes two types of writing: the first lies somewhere between non-fiction essays and short stories, using fictional techniques to tell essentially true stories. The second consists of literary forgeries, which Borges initially passed off as translations of passages from famous but seldom-read works. In

8296-420: The Church the forgiveness of his sins". After the funeral, Borges was laid to rest in Geneva's Cimetière de Plainpalais . His grave, marked by a rough-hewn headstone, is adorned with carvings derived from Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse art and literature. Maria Kodama, his widow and heir on the basis of the marriage and two wills, gained control over his works. Her assertive administration of his estate resulted in

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8432-444: The Frank , the first king of the Merovingian dynasty , made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks to Paris and the Parisian Francien dialects were born. Fortification of the Île de la Cité failed to avert sacking by Vikings in 845 , but Paris's strategic importance—with its bridges preventing ships from passing—was established by successful defence in

8568-449: The French police and gendarmes arrested 12,884 Jews, including 4,115 children, and confined them during five days at the Vel d'Hiv ( Vélodrome d'Hiver ), from which they were transported by train to the extermination camp at Auschwitz . None of the children came back. On 25 August 1944, the city was liberated by the French 2nd Armoured Division and the 4th Infantry Division of the United States Army . General Charles de Gaulle led

8704-413: The German fighters, they took no stock in them. Then I thought, well now Germany has lost, now America has saved us from this nightmare, but since nobody can doubt on which side I stood, I'll see what can be done from a literary point of view in favor of the Nazis. And then I created the ideal Nazi." At Columbia University in 1971, Borges further elaborated on the story's creation, "I tried to imagine what

8840-411: The Gran Premio de Honor of SADE (the Argentine Society of Writers, 1975), the French Legion of Honour (1981), the Diamond Konex Award of Literature (1994) the title of Illustrious Citizen of Buenos Aires (1986), and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (awarded to him in 1991 in Alcalá de Henares ). Adolfo Bioy Casares is buried in La Recoleta Cemetery , Buenos Aires. The best-known novel by Bioy Casares

8976-505: The Holy Trinity. This world is so strange that anything may happen, or may not happen." Borges was taught to read the Bible by his English Protestant grandmother and he prayed the Our Father each night because of a promise he made to his mother. He also died in the presence of a priest. During his final days in Geneva, Borges began brooding about the possibility of an afterlife . Although calm and collected about his own death, Borges began probing Kodama as to whether she inclined more towards

9112-517: The Party in this matter ultimately led to a permanent rift with his longtime lover, Argentine Communist Estela Canto . In a 1956 interview given to El Hogar , Borges stated that "[Communists] are in favor of totalitarian regimes and systematically combat freedom of thought, oblivious of the fact that the principal victims of dictatorships are, precisely, intelligence and culture." He elaborated: "Many people are in favor of dictatorships because they allow them to avoid thinking for themselves. Everything

9248-411: The Place Royale, now Place des Vosges . In spite of Henry IV's efforts to improve city circulation, the narrowness of Paris's streets was a contributing factor in his assassination near Les Halles marketplace in 1610. During the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu , chief minister of Louis XIII , was determined to make Paris the most beautiful city in Europe. He built five new bridges, a new chapel for

9384-429: The Revolution, but after 1799 it surged with 160,000 new residents, reaching 660,000 by 1815. Napoleon replaced the elected government of Paris with a prefect that reported directly to him. He began erecting monuments to military glory, including the Arc de Triomphe , and improved the neglected infrastructure of the city with new fountains, the Canal de l'Ourcq , Père Lachaise Cemetery and the city's first metal bridge,

9520-428: The School of Philosophy at the University of Crete . In the mid-1960s, Borges became acquainted with Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future Pope Francis , who was at the time a young Jesuit priest. In 1979, Borges spoke appreciatively and at some length about Bergoglio to the Argentine poet and essayist Roberto Alifano. In 1967, Borges married the recently widowed Elsa Astete Millán. Friends believed that his mother, who

9656-425: The Tinker Chair. This led to his first lecture tour in the United States. In 1962, two major anthologies of Borges's writings were published in English by New York presses: Ficciones and Labyrinths . In that year, Borges began lecture tours of Europe. Numerous honors were to accumulate over the years such as a Special Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America "for distinguished contribution to

9792-670: The Tuileries Palace. In 1793, as the revolution turned increasingly radical, the king, queen and mayor were beheaded by guillotine in the Reign of Terror , along with more than 16,000 others throughout France. The property of the aristocracy and the church was nationalised , and the city's churches were closed, sold or demolished. A succession of revolutionary factions ruled Paris until 9 November 1799 ( coup d'état du 18 brumaire ), when Napoleon Bonaparte seized power as First Consul. The population of Paris had dropped by 100,000 during

9928-638: The United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages. In 1961, Borges 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 García Márquez 's One Hundred Years of Solitude . He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators , to

10064-530: The age of eleven. He began his secondary education in the Instituto Libre de Segunda Enseñanza at the Universidad de Buenos Aires . Later, he started but did not end up finishing degrees in law , philosophy , and literature . Fueled by disappointment with the university atmosphere, he moved to a family ranch where, when he didn't have visitors, he devoted himself almost entirely to his study of literature. By

10200-535: The assistance of his wife, Evita . Almost immediately, the spoils system was the rule of the day, as ideological critics of the ruling Partido Justicialista were fired from government jobs. During this period, Borges was informed that he was being "promoted" from his position at the Miguel Cané Library to a post as inspector of poultry and rabbits at the Buenos Aires municipal market. Upon demanding to know

10336-461: The attempt", despite the 1921 opus El caudillo . Jorge Luis Borges wrote, "As most of my people had been soldiers and I knew I would never be, I felt ashamed, quite early, to be a bookish kind of person and not a man of action." Jorge Luis Borges was taught at home until the age of 11 and was bilingual in Spanish and English, reading Shakespeare in the latter at the age of twelve. The family lived in

10472-460: The capital of France, was the most populous city of Europe. By comparison, London in 1300 had 80,000 inhabitants. By the early fourteenth century, so much filth had collected inside urban Europe that French and Italian cities were naming streets after human waste. In medieval Paris, several street names were inspired by merde , the French word for "shit". During the Hundred Years' War , Paris

10608-664: The centre stage of the French Revolution . On 14 July, a mob seized the arsenal at the Invalides , acquiring thousands of guns, with which it stormed the Bastille , a principal symbol of royal authority. The first independent Paris Commune , or city council, met in the Hôtel de Ville and elected a Mayor , the astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly , on 15 July. Louis XVI and the royal family were brought to Paris and incarcerated in

10744-431: 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." David Foster Wallace wrote: "The truth, briefly stated, is that Borges is arguably the great bridge between modernism and post-modernism in world literature. He is modernist in that his fiction shows

10880-561: The city together. The journey sealed a lifelong friendship and many influential literary collaborations. Under the pseudonyms H. Bustos Domecq and Benito Suárez Lynch, the two teamed up on a variety of projects from short stories ( Seis problemas para don Isidro Parodi , Dos fantasías memorables , Un modelo para la muerte ), to screenplays ( Los orilleros , Invasión ), and fantastic fiction ( Antología de la literatura fantástica , Cuentos breves y extraordinarios ). Between 1945 and 1955, they directed "El séptimo círculo" ("The Seventh Circle"),

11016-510: The city's subway system, the Paris Métro , serves 5.23   million passengers daily. It is the second-busiest metro system in Europe after the Moscow Metro . Gare du Nord is the 24th-busiest railway station in the world and the busiest outside Japan , with 262   million passengers in 2015. Paris has one of the most sustainable transportation systems and is one of only two cities in

11152-529: The city. In 1848, Louis-Philippe was overthrown by a popular uprising in the streets of Paris. His successor, Napoleon III , alongside the newly appointed prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann , launched a huge public works project to build wide new boulevards, a new opera house, a central market, new aqueducts, sewers and parks, including the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes . In 1860, Napoleon III annexed

11288-507: The curfew led to violent confrontations between the police and demonstrators, in which at least 40 people were killed. The anti-independence Organisation armée secrète (OAS) carried out a series of bombings in Paris throughout 1961 and 1962. In May 1968, protesting students occupied the Sorbonne and put up barricades in the Latin Quarter . Thousands of Parisian blue-collar workers joined

11424-503: The early 1960s. In 1961, Borges received the first Prix International , which he shared with Samuel Beckett . While Beckett had garnered a distinguished reputation in Europe and America, Borges had been largely unknown and untranslated in the English-speaking world and the prize stirred great interest in his work. The Italian government named Borges Commendatore and the University of Texas at Austin appointed him for one year to

11560-631: The family resided in Palermo , then a poorer neighborhood. Borges's mother, Leonor Acevedo Suárez , worked as a translator and came from a family of criollo (Spanish) origin. Her family had been much involved in the European settling of South America and the Argentine War of Independence , and she spoke often of their heroic actions. His 1929 book Cuaderno San Martín includes the poem "Isidoro Acevedo", commemorating his grandfather, Isidoro de Acevedo Laprida,

11696-541: The first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons Martyrum (Latin "Hill of Martyrs"), later " Montmartre ", from where he walked headless to the north of the city; the place where he fell and was buried became an important religious shrine, the Basilica of Saint-Denis , and many French kings are buried there. Clovis

11832-404: The first Borges stories to be translated into English, appeared in the August 1948 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine , translated by Anthony Boucher . Though several other Borges translations appeared in literary magazines and anthologies during the 1950s (and one story appeared in the fantasy and science fiction magazine Fantastic Universe in 1960), his international fame dates from

11968-659: The first socialist mayor. He was re-elected in March 2008. In 2007, in an effort to reduce car traffic, he introduced the Vélib' , a system which rents bicycles. Bertrand Delanoë also transformed a section of the highway along the Left Bank of the Seine into an urban promenade and park, the Promenade des Berges de la Seine , which he inaugurated in June 2013. In 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy launched

12104-620: The following year he received the National Prize for Literature. From 1956 to 1970, Borges also held a position as a professor of literature at the University of Buenos Aires and other temporary appointments at other universities. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1964. In the fall of 1967 and spring of 1968, he delivered the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University . As his eyesight deteriorated, Borges relied increasingly on his mother's help. When he

12240-560: The following years, he served as a literary adviser for the publishing house Emecé Editores , and from 1936 to 1939 wrote weekly columns for El Hogar . In 1938, Borges found work as the first assistant at the Miguel Cané Municipal Library. It was in a working-class area and there were so few books that cataloging more than one hundred books per day, he was told, would leave little to do for the other staff and would make them look bad. The task took him about an hour each day and

12376-555: The front line at the First Battle of the Marne . The city was also bombed by Zeppelins and shelled by German long-range guns . In the years after the war, known as Les Années Folles , Paris continued to be a mecca for writers, musicians and artists from around the world, including Ernest Hemingway , Igor Stravinsky , James Joyce , Josephine Baker , Eva Kotchever , Henry Miller , Anaïs Nin , Sidney Bechet and Salvador Dalí . In

12512-540: The highest in the European Union. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, in 2022, Paris was the city with the ninth-highest cost of living in the world. Paris is a major railway, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Charles de Gaulle Airport , the third-busiest airport in Europe , and Orly Airport . Opened in 1900,

12648-573: The individual should be strong and the State should be weak. I couldn't be enthusiastic about theories where the State is more important than the individual." After the overthrow via coup d'état of President Juan Domingo Perón in 1955, Borges supported efforts to purge Argentina's Government of Peronists and dismantle the former President's welfare state. He was enraged that the Communist Party of Argentina opposed these measures and sharply criticized them in lectures and in print. Borges's opposition to

12784-473: The innermost three departments around Paris, airports and high-speed rail (TGV) stations, at an estimated cost of €35 billion. The system is scheduled to be completed by 2030. In January 2015, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed attacks across the Paris region. 1.5 million people marched in Paris in a show of solidarity against terrorism and in support of freedom of speech. In November of

12920-613: The journals Prisma , a broadsheet distributed largely by pasting copies to walls in Buenos Aires, and Proa . Later in life, Borges regretted some of these early publications, attempting to purchase all known copies to ensure their destruction. By the mid-1930s, he began to explore existential questions and fiction. He worked in a style that Argentine critic Ana María Barrenechea has called "irreality." Many other Latin American writers, such as Juan Rulfo , Juan José Arreola , and Alejo Carpentier , were investigating these themes, influenced by

13056-560: The late 12th century, Philip Augustus extended the Louvre fortress to defend the city against river invasions from the west, gave the city its first walls between 1190 and 1215, rebuilt its bridges to either side of its central island, and paved its main thoroughfares. In 1190, he transformed Paris's former cathedral school into a student-teacher corporation that would become the University of Paris and would draw students from all of Europe. With 200,000 inhabitants in 1328, Paris, then already

13192-634: The modern city of Paris was first mentioned in the mid-1st century BC by Julius Caesar as Luteciam Parisiorum (' Lutetia of the Parisii ') and is later attested as Parision in the 5th century AD, then as Paris in 1265. During the Roman period, it was commonly known as Lutetia or Lutecia in Latin, and as Leukotekía in Greek, which is interpreted as either stemming from the Celtic root *lukot- ('mouse'), or from * luto- ('marsh, swamp'). The name Paris

13328-673: The mystery genre" (1976), the Balzan Prize (for Philology, Linguistics and literary Criticism) and the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca , the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (all 1980), as well as the French Legion of Honour (1983) and the Diamond Konex Award for Literature Arts as the most important writer in the last decade in his country. In 1967, Borges began a five-year period of collaboration with

13464-453: The name of restoring their national honour. Such use of children's books for propaganda he writes, "perfect the criminal arts of barbarians." In a 1944 essay, Borges postulated, Nazism suffers from unreality, like Erigena 's hell. It is uninhabitable; men can only die for it, lie for it, wound and kill for it. No one, in the intimate depths of his being, can wish it to triumph. I shall risk this conjecture: Hitler wants to be defeated . Hitler

13600-705: The new site of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (1996), the Arche de la Défense (1985–1989) in La Défense , as well as the Louvre Pyramid with its underground courtyard (1983–1989); Jacques Chirac (2006), the Musée du quai Branly . In the early 21st century, the population of Paris began to increase slowly again, as more young people moved into the city. It reached 2.25 million in 2011. In March 2001, Bertrand Delanoë became

13736-518: The only child of Adolfo Bioy Domecq and Marta Ignacia Casares Lynch . He was born in Recoleta , a neighborhood of Buenos Aires traditionally inhabited by upper-class families, where he would reside the majority of his life. Due to his family's high social class, he was able to dedicate himself exclusively to literature and, at the same time, distinguish his work from the traditional literary medium of his time. He wrote his first story ("Iris y Margarita") at

13872-399: The painter Norah Borges , sister of Jorge Luis Borges. At age ten, Jorge Luis Borges translated Oscar Wilde 's The Happy Prince into Spanish. It was published in a local journal, but Borges's friends thought the real author was his father. Borges Haslam was a lawyer and psychology teacher who harboured literary aspirations. Borges said his father "tried to become a writer and failed in

14008-542: The reason, Borges was told, "Well, you were on the side of the Allies, what do you expect?" Borges resigned the following day. Perón's treatment of Borges became a cause célèbre for the Argentine intelligentsia. The Argentine Society of Writers (SADE) held a formal dinner in his honour. At the dinner, a speech was read which Borges had written for the occasion. It said: Dictatorships breed oppression, dictatorships breed servility, dictatorships breed cruelty; more loathsome still

14144-536: The red clay of Roland Garros . Paris hosted the 1900 , the 1924 , and the 2024 Summer Olympics . The 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups , the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup , the 2007 Rugby World Cup , as well as the 1960 , 1984 and 2016 UEFA European Championships were held in Paris. Every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. The ancient oppidum that corresponds to

14280-452: The rest of his time he spent in the basement of the library, writing and translating. Borges's father died in 1938, shortly before his 64th birthday. On Christmas Eve that year, Borges had a severe head injury; during treatment, he nearly died of sepsis . While recovering from the accident, Borges began exploring a new style of writing for which he would become famous. His first story written after his accident, " Pierre Menard, Author of

14416-559: The same year, terrorist attacks , claimed by ISIL, killed 130 people and injured more than 350. On 22 April 2016, the Paris Agreement was signed by 196 nations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in an aim to limit the effects of climate change below 2 °C. Paris is located in northern central France, in a north-bending arc of the river Seine , whose crest includes two islands,

14552-756: The short novel The Invention of Morel , which marked the beginning of his literary maturity. The novel's introduction was written by Borges, in which he comments on the absence of precursors to science fiction in Spanish literature, presenting Bioy Casares as the pioneer of a new genre. The novella was very well accepted and received the Primer Premio Municipal de Literatura (First Municipal Prize of Literature) in 1941. During this same time, in collaboration with Borges and Silvina Ocampo, he published two anthologies: Antología de la literatura fantástica (1940) y Antología poética argentina (1941). In 1940, Bioy Casares married Silvina Ocampo , Victoria's sister, who

14688-582: The students, and the movement grew into a two-week general strike. Supporters of the government won the June elections by a large majority. The May 1968 events in France resulted in the break-up of the University of Paris into 13 independent campuses. In 1975, the National Assembly changed the status of Paris to that of other French cities and, on 25 March 1977, Jacques Chirac became the first elected mayor of Paris since 1793. The Tour Maine-Montparnasse ,

14824-585: The surrounding towns and created eight new arrondissements, expanding Paris to its current limits. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Paris was besieged by the Prussian Army . Following several months of blockade, hunger, and then bombardment by the Prussians, the city was forced to surrender on 28 January 1871. After seizing power in Paris on 28 March, a revolutionary government known as

14960-460: The tallest building in the city at 57 storeys and 210 m (689 ft) high, was built between 1969 and 1973. It was highly controversial, and it remains the only building in the centre of the city over 32 storeys high. The population of Paris dropped from 2,850,000 in 1954 to 2,152,000 in 1990, as middle-class families moved to the suburbs. A suburban railway network, the RER (Réseau Express Régional),

15096-529: The throne Henry IV , after converting to Catholicism to gain entry to the capital, entered the city in 1594 to claim the crown of France. This king made several improvements to the capital during his reign: he completed the construction of Paris's first uncovered, sidewalk-lined bridge, the Pont Neuf , built a Louvre extension connecting it to the Tuileries Palace , and created the first Paris residential square,

15232-580: The time he reached his late twenties, he maintained proficiency in Spanish , English , French (which he spoke from the age of 4) and German . Between 1929 and 1937 Bioy Casares published a number of books ( Prólogo , 17 disparos contra lo porvenir , Caos , La nueva tormenta , La estatua casera , Luis Greve, muerto ) that he would later disdain, restricting additional publications and refusing to discuss them, labeling all his work previous to 1940 as 'horrible'. In 1932 he met Jorge Luis Borges at Villa Ocampo,

15368-401: The translations by Norman Thomas di Giovanni , in which Borges himself collaborated, and from which di Giovanni would have received an unusually high fifty percent of the royalties. Kodama commissioned new translations by Andrew Hurley , which have become the official translations in English. At the time of her death, Kodama left no will and the status of the Borges estate is in limbo. During

15504-510: The war. After World War I , the family spent three years living in various cities: Lugano , Barcelona, Majorca , Seville, and Madrid. They remained in Europe until 1921. At that time, Borges discovered the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer and Gustav Meyrink 's The Golem (1915), which became influential to his work. In Spain, Borges became a member of the avant-garde , anti- Modernismo Ultraist literary movement, inspired by Guillaume Apollinaire and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti , close to

15640-452: The world can do without German civilization, but I do know that its corruption by the teachings of hatred is a crime." In a 1938 essay, Borges reviewed an anthology which rewrote German authors of the past to fit the Nazi party line. He was disgusted by what he described as Germany's "chaotic descent into darkness" and the attendant rewriting of history. He argued that such books sacrificed the German people's culture, history and integrity in

15776-488: The world including Pablo Picasso , Modigliani , and Henri Matisse made Paris their home. It was the birthplace of Fauvism , Cubism and abstract art , and authors such as Marcel Proust were exploring new approaches to literature. During the First World War , Paris sometimes found itself on the front line; 600 to 1,000 Paris taxis played a small but highly important symbolic role in transporting 6,000 soldiers to

15912-660: The world that received the Sustainable Transport Award twice. Paris is known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre received 8.9   million visitors in 2023, on track for keeping its position as the most-visited art museum in the world. The Musée d'Orsay , Musée Marmottan Monet and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art. The Pompidou Centre , Musée National d'Art Moderne , Musée Rodin and Musée Picasso are noted for their collections of modern and contemporary art . The historical district along

16048-401: The year. Paris is known for intermittent, abrupt, heavy showers. The highest recorded temperature was 42.6 °C (108.7 °F), on 25 July 2019. The lowest was −23.9 °C (−11.0 °F), on 10 December 1879. For almost all of its long history, except for a few brief periods, Paris was governed directly by representatives of the king, emperor, or president of France. In 1974, Paris

16184-423: The years after the peace conference , the city was also home to growing numbers of students and activists from French colonies and other Asian and African countries, who later became leaders of their countries, such as Ho Chi Minh , Zhou Enlai and Léopold Sédar Senghor . On 14 June 1940, the German army marched into Paris, which had been declared an " open city ". On 16–17 July 1942, following German orders,

16320-444: Was 90 and anticipating her own death, wanted to find someone to care for her blind son. The marriage lasted less than three years. After a legal separation, Borges moved back in with his mother, with whom he lived until her death at age 99. Thereafter, he lived alone in the small flat he had shared with her, cared for by Fanny, their housekeeper of many decades. From 1975 until the time of his death, Borges traveled internationally. He

16456-533: Was a man who had unceasingly searched for the right word, the term that could sum up the whole, the final meaning of things." He said, however, that no man can reach that word through his own efforts and in trying becomes lost in a labyrinth. Pastor de Montmollin concluded, "It is not man who discovers the word, it is the Word that comes to him." Father Jacquet also preached, saying that, when visiting Borges before his death, he had found "a man full of love, who received from

16592-562: Was a painter as well as a writer. In 1954, one of Bioy Casares' mistresses gave birth in the United States to his daughter, Marta, who was subsequently adopted by his wife Silvina. Marta was killed in an automobile accident just three weeks after Silvina Ocampo's death, leaving Adolfo with two children. The estate of Silvina Ocampo and Adolfo Bioy Casares was awarded by a Buenos Aires court to yet another love child of Adolfo Bioy Casares, Fabián Bioy. Fabián Bioy died, aged 40, in Paris, France , on 11 February 2006. Bioy won several awards, including

16728-587: 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.   Fictions ) and El Aleph ( transl.   The 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

16864-496: Was asked about the story by a student from the creative writing program. He recalled, "When the Germans were defeated I felt great joy and relief, but at the same time I thought of the German defeat as being somehow tragic, because here we have perhaps the most educated people in Europe, who have a fine literature, a fine tradition of philosophy and poetry. Yet these people were bamboozled by a madman named Adolf Hitler , and I think there

17000-771: Was born in Portugal in 1770, and lived in Torre de Moncorvo , in the north of the country, before he emigrated to Argentina, where he married Cármen Lafinur. Borges's own father, Jorge Guillermo Borges Haslam , was a lawyer and wrote the novel El caudillo in 1921. Borges Haslam was born in Entre Ríos of Spanish, Portuguese, and English descent, the son of Francisco Borges Lafinur, a colonel, and Frances Ann Haslam, an Englishwoman. Borges Haslam grew up speaking English at home. The family frequently traveled to Europe. Borges Haslam wedded Leonor Acevedo Suárez in 1898 and their children also included

17136-703: Was built to complement the Métro; the Périphérique expressway encircling the city, was completed in 1973. Most of the postwar presidents of the Fifth Republic wanted to leave their own monuments in Paris; President Georges Pompidou started the Centre Georges Pompidou (1977), Valéry Giscard d'Estaing began the Musée d'Orsay (1986); President François Mitterrand had the Opéra Bastille built (1985–1989),

17272-519: Was filled in from around the 10th century, Paris's cultural centre began to move to the Right Bank. In 1137, a new city marketplace (today's Les Halles ) replaced the two smaller ones on the Île de la Cité and Place de Grève (Place de l'Hôtel de Ville) . The latter location housed the headquarters of Paris's river trade corporation, an organisation that later became, unofficially (although formally in later years), Paris's first municipal government. In

17408-568: Was made into a film (under the name of Días de odio , Days of Hate , directed in 1954 by Leopoldo Torre Nilsson ). Around this time, Borges also began writing screenplays. In 1955, he became director of the Argentine National Library. By the late 1950s he had become completely blind. Neither the coincidence nor the irony of his blindness as a writer escaped Borges: Nadie rebaje a lágrima o reproche esta declaración de la maestría de Dios, que con magnífica ironía me dio

17544-484: Was not able to read and write anymore (he never learned to read Braille ), his mother, to whom he had always been close, became his personal secretary. When Perón returned from exile and was re-elected president in 1973, Borges immediately resigned as director of the National Library. Eight of Borges's poems appear in the 1943 anthology of Spanish American Poets by H. R. Hays. "The Garden of Forking Paths", one of

17680-409: Was now "overrun by arrivistes, by correct youths lacking any mental equipment, and decorative young ladies". He brought with him the doctrine of Ultraism and launched his career, publishing surreal poems and essays in literary journals. In 1923, Borges first published his poetry, a collection called Fervor de Buenos Aires , and contributed to the avant-garde review Martín Fierro . Borges co-founded

17816-611: Was occupied by England-friendly Burgundian forces from 1418, before being occupied outright by the English when Henry V of England entered the French capital in 1420; in spite of a 1429 effort by Joan of Arc to liberate the city, it would remain under English occupation until 1436. In the late 16th-century French Wars of Religion , Paris was a stronghold of the Catholic League , the organisers of 24 August 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in which thousands of French Protestants were killed. The conflicts ended when pretender to

17952-653: Was often accompanied in these travels by his personal assistant María Kodama , an Argentine woman of Japanese and German ancestry. In April 1986, a few months before his death, he married her via an attorney in Paraguay , in what was then a common practice among Argentines wishing to circumvent the Argentine laws of the time regarding divorce. According to Kodama, Borges drank as a young man, but eventually gave up alcohol as he aged and "felt more secure." On his religious views, Borges declared himself an agnostic, clarifying: "Being an agnostic means all things are possible, even God, even

18088-542: Was originally called Lutetia (more fully, Lutetia Parisiorum , "Lutetia of the Parisii", modern French Lutèce ). It became a prosperous city with a forum, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre . By the end of the Western Roman Empire , the town was known as Parisius , a Latin name that would later become Paris in French. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis ,

18224-415: Was then Argentina's most important literary journal and helped Borges find his fame. Ocampo introduced Borges to Adolfo Bioy Casares , another well-known figure of Argentine literature who was to become a frequent collaborator and close friend. They wrote a number of works together, some under the nom de plume H. Bustos Domecq , including a parody detective series and fantasy stories. During these years,

18360-605: Was treated by an eye specialist, while his son and daughter attended school. Jorge Luis learned French, read Thomas Carlyle in English, and began to read philosophy in German. In 1917, when he was eighteen, he met writer Maurice Abramowicz and began a literary friendship that lasted for the remainder of his life. He received his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The Borges family decided that, due to political unrest in Argentina, they would remain in Switzerland during

18496-572: Was visited first by Father Pierre Jacquet and by Pastor Edouard de Montmollin. Borges died of liver cancer on 14 June 1986, aged 86, in Geneva. His burial was preceded by an ecumenical service at the Protestant Cathédrale de Saint Pierre on 18 June. With many Swiss and Argentine dignitaries present, Pastor de Montmollin read the First Chapter of St John's Gospel . He then preached that "Borges

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