Reader's Day in Argentina

August 24 is Reader's Day, in honor of the birth of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges was born on August 24, 1899 in Buenos Aires. Son of Jorge Guillermo Borges and Leonor Acevedo Suárez, he shared his passion for reading with his younger sister Norah. From an early age Borges learned to read in English rather than Spanish under the influence of his paternal grandmother and his governess, both British, who were in charge of his education until he entered elementary school at the age of 9.

In 1914 he settled with his family in Europe, and returned to the country only in 1921. Together with a group of young people under the tutelage of Macedonio Fernández, his father's classmate and until then an unpublished writer, he founded several magazines, among them Prisma and Proa. Together with Ulises Petit de Murat, he edited the Revista Multicolor de los Sábados of the newspaper Crítica.

In 1923 his first book of poetry Fervor de Buenos Aires appeared, an edition of 300 copies, and after his brief stay in Europe he settled again in Buenos Aires where he met Victoria Ocampo, with whom he became friends.

In 1925 he published his second book of poetry Luna de enfrente and the first essay Inquisiciones and together with Silvina Ocampo and Adolfo Bioy Casares, Antología de la literatura fantástica (1940) and ordered the Antología poética argentina (1941). He also edited the short stories El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (1941); Seis problemas para don Isidro Parodi (1942) in collaboration with Adolfo Bioy Casares under the pseudonym Honorio Bustos Domecq and Poemas (1922-1943). In 1944 he published Ficciones including among other stories El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan with which he obtained the Gran Premio de Honor de la Sociedad Argentina de Escritores.