Of course, there is Jorge Luis Borges, probably the best known Argentine author and the only one to be acknowledged as part of the universal literary canon. His best friend Adolfo Bioy Casares, an equally talented writer, kept a diary in which his almost daily meetings with Borges can be read as the most intimate report ever given on Borges or as a critical essay on literature through both friends’ endless comments about books and writers.
It’s only after Bioy Casares died that this diary could be published. Before Bioy (as we Argentines refer to him, shortening his last name) only Estela Canto, a former Borges girl friend and a writer herself, dared to unveil the secret Borges. While she rather centered on Borges’ love behavior, Bioy delivers his friend’s words and deeds without any previous interest or artifice, simply reporting their hours together. Bioy was married to an extraordinary writer, Silvina Ocampo, and one of the most frequent entries in the diary is “Borges comes for dinner.” When Borges, at the end of his life, married María Kodama, their friendship withered and there are still talks in town about how and why Bioy disapproved this union. Does this post sound gossipy? It reflects Bioy’s book, the biggest gossip collection about Borges, besides being an exemplary literary journal in Spanish language.
The Continental Library 
Leave a Reply