The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary world literature. Continuing the tradition of fantastic literature established by Edgar Allan Poe in the nineteenth century, he transformed the genre into an electric whole that allowed him to explore philosophical ideas and to pose relevant questions. After participating in and observing the development of the avant-garde during the first quarter of the century, Borges created his own type of post-avant-garde literature--which shows the process of critical self-examination that reveals the moment in which literature becomes a reflection of itself, distanced from life--in order to reveal the formal and intellectual density involved in writing. Borges's influence is seen, especially in Latin-American literature, in the use of intertextuality and parodic and satiric elements by various writers such as Julio Cortázar and Gabriel García Márquez, his confessed admirers.

Borges...