JORGE LUIS BORGES DIED. 86,''''
blind Argentine author of
poetry and fiction, one of Latin America''''s greatest
writers; of liver cancer; in Geneva. Borges was an original: his
poetry was somber and elegiac: his short stories at once**fantastical and grittily realistic - most notably the mystery-like "fictions," reminiscent of Kafka and Poe. The 1973 return of Dictator Juan Peron prompted him to resign as director of the National Library in his native Buenos Aires. Far from a handicap, being
blind, he said, "leaves the mind free to explore the depths and heights***of human imagination. "
(Time, June 23,1986)
By Fausto Fabio de Araujo.