In many ways, this book is the result of Borges’ attempt to understand, with Carriego’s help, the slums of Buenos Aires, the slums of Palermo.
“I believe that from now on the name of Evaristo Carriego will take its place in the ecclesia visibilis of Argentine literature, and that all the prestigious institutions of our literature – rhetoric courses, anthologies, national literary history – will not be able to avoid mentioning him. I also believe that Carriego will become part of the most correct and distinguished ecclesia invisibilis, a member of the omnipresent community of believers in poetry. And I also believe that it will not be the sad cries of his work that will earn him this precious membership. I have tried to justify these arguments here.
Borges is the eccentric thinker of the suburbs of Buenos Aires, the connoisseur of Latin slang, the infinite sum of librarians, the rare mixture of Asia Minor and Palermo, Chesterton and Carriego, Kafka and Martín Fierro. Above all, Borges is a great poet.
Ernesto Sabato
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JORGE LUIS BORGES was born in 1899 in Buenos Aires. He studied in Geneva and in England. After living in Spain for a while, he returned to Argentina in 1921 and began his writing career. In 1935 he wrote Alçaklığın Evrensel Tarihi. In Buenos Aires, in addition to his writing, he worked as a librarian, professor of English literature, and president of the Literary Association. From 1955 to 1970 he was director of the National Library of Argentina. After sharing the Formentor Prize with Samuel Beckett in 1961, his fame spread beyond the country’s borders. In 1980 he was awarded the prestigious Cervantes Prize. He died in 1986. According to André Maurois, Borges, “a true Argentine in nationality and temperament, but raised on universal literature,” skillfully synthesized ideas from literature, philosophy, and the history of faith to create a unique universe in which universal themes of time, space, destiny, and reality are written in a style that blurs the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction.
…
PERAL BAYAZ is the translator of Jorge Luis Borges, as well as Teke Şenliği, Don Rigoberto’nun Not Defteri by Mario Vargas Llosa and Katil Orospular ve Vahşi Hafiyeler by Roberto Bolaño.
TITLE
Book Title: Evaristo Carriego
Author: Jorge Luis Borges
Translation: Peral Bayaz
Publisher: Can Yayınları
Series: Modern
Genre: Expression
Number of Pages: 128
