The Making of Jorge Luis Borges as an Argentine Cultural Icon

Book excerpt: Jorge Luis Borges is, undeniably, Argentina's best-known and most influential writer. In addition to scholarly studies of his work, his emblematic figure continues to appear on book covers and carrier bags, in biographies, plaques and statues, photographs and interviews, as well as cartoons and city tours. The Making of Jorge Luis Borges as an Argentine Cultural Icon argues that the ideas and expectations that Argentine people have placed upon the author - thus constructing the icon - are also those that allow them to define their cultural identity. The book examines these intertwined processes by analysing the image of Borges in biographies, photographs, comic strips and urban spaces and the socio-political, historical and cultural contexts in which they were produced. The study seeks not to reveal a Borgesian essence but, rather, to expose the complexity of the ongoing mechanisms which construct Borges the icon. Despite the vast amount of biographical and critical work about the writer that has been produced in Argentina and abroad, The Making of Jorge Luis Borges as an Argentine Cultural Icon is the first in-depth, comprehensive examination of the construction of the author as an Argentine cultural icon.