This section contains 4,567 words (approx. 16 pages at 300 words per page) |
by Jorge Luis Borges
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on August 24, 1899, to middle-class parents of Spanish and English descent, Jorge Luis Borges would become the undisputed giant of Latin American letters. Shy and bookish, a librarian by profession, Borges reflected throughout his career on the lives of his heroic Argentine relatives and on the myths and realities of the nations (often violent) character. When The South appeared in the two-volume 1956 edition of Ficciones (in the volume Artifices), Borges wrote in the preface that the story was perhaps his finest to date. It achieves a dreamlike, romanticized treatment of elements embedded in the Argentine sense of national heritage, namely of the violence and cruelty attached to the traditional rural lifestyle. In the mid-twentieth century Argentina was testing different versions of nationalism. One view holds that the story reflects tensions and fears felt...
This section contains 4,567 words (approx. 16 pages at 300 words per page) |