"A writer, or anyone, should think that whatever happens to him is an instrument; all things have been given to him for a purpose and this is even more so in the case of an artist. These things were given so we could overcome them, so we could make of the miserable circumstances of our life something eternal."
-- Jorge Luis BorgesMost literature aficionados know that 1999 marks the centennial birthday of one of the world's great writers, a man whose powerful and delightful short stories have influenced generations.
Ernest Hemingway, right? No, in this case, it is Argentina's Jorge Luis Borges.
While the similarities between Hemingway and Borges are many, the differences between the two are also striking: Hemingway was a man's man, a writer who spent time as a war correspondent and who loved women and bullfighting. By contrast, Borges was a bookish and lonely individual who, despite being blind, spent most of his life in libraries. But the tameness of his existence did nothing to diminish Borges' genius.
"I think without any doubt he's the most influential writer in the 20th century in Latin America," said Brigham Young University Spanish professor Ted Lyon, who helped bring Borges to Utah in 1976.
Borges was born in Buenos Aires on Aug. 24, 1899, about a month after Hemingway's birth. At 15, Borges moved with his family to Geneva, Switzerland, and later spent time living in Spain. He returned to Argentina in his early 20s to begin in earnest a writing career, which would last until his death in 1986.
Now, 100 years after his birth, Borges fans are celebrating the occasion with international conferences and the publication of several new biographies. There's an academic journal dedicated to the study of Borges, and a university in Denmark has a center devoted to him.
Among Borges' most well-known and powerful works are two collections of short stories, both published in the 1940s: "Ficciones" and "El Aleph." The two collections were little known until they were translated from Spanish into French in the 1960s. Later, Borges attracted a large following in the United States, a country he visited numerous times in his twilight years.
Lyon first met Borges while the author was director of Argentina's National Library in 1968. When he found out that Lyon was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Borges recalled details about the LDS Church in books by Mark Twain and Fawn Brodie.
While visiting Lyon at the University of Wisconsin in 1969, Borges expressed a desire to visit "Mormon Utah."
The Argentine master visited the University of Utah in 1972, and came to BYU four years later. Lyon recalled that Borges asked for only $500 as a speaking fee, and Borges' self-effacing style won over the audience easily.
"He was very humble, in contrast to many Latin American writers," Lyon said. "The other thing was that it was very hard to know when he was speaking seriously. He was a tease."
When one listener at BYU asked Borges about the meaning of one of his short stories, the no-nonsense author replied, "If I could have said it in any fewer words, I would have."
Before he visited Utah, Borges didn't know what to expect. In his "Universal History of Infamy," Borges wrote a story about Billy the Kid, in which he referred to the "many beds of Brigham Young." But Borges told Lyon after his visit that he enjoyed Utah, and that it was more normal than he had expected it to be. The writer liked it so much, in fact, that he signed a contract with BYU to teach a six-week seminar in 1986. But Borges died that year before he could return to Provo.
Borges began his career as a journalist and a poet. In his middle years, he wrote fictional short stories and prose. Later in life, after his blindness made it difficult to read and write and he dictated poetry to students and assistants. He is most well known for his love of metaphysics, the intellectual world.
Borges never wrote a novel, and despite being nominated 21 years in a row, he never won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Many Borges fans believe that his aloofness on political issues kept Borges from the prize he deserved. Borges himself said he didn't care about politics or prizes.