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A combination of political and personal was apparently the cause that Jorge Luis Borges marginalized Nobel Prize for Literature, the highest distinction that a writer can aspire. Nation once again raised the question of that frustration, always attributed to many sources to visit in 1976 to Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who praised Chilean dictatorship. A
that would have joined in an ultimate fact, the criticism made to the works of Swedish poet Artur Lundkvist, who later became permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, the award-winning agency. María Esther Vázquez, biographer of Borges, revealed that Lundkvist never forgiven that remark.
In the birth centenary of Borges is unavoidable to wonder why the most influential writer of the century Argentina did not win the Nobel.
According to sources consulted by The Nation, two facts seem Borges had marginalized the highest literary distinction. The first goes back to 1976. The writer was invited to Chile of Pinochet, then the dictator who caused more rejection in the intelligentsia of Europe and Latin America.
There, Sept. 21, the same day that killed former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier in Washington, Borges hands of Pinochet received a doctorate honoris causa at the University of Chile and delivered a speech questioning, which years later he publicly repented.
The newspaper La Tercera Santiago, reproduced these statements in its edition last Sunday: "At this time I know there's anarchy here, between the mountains and the sea, a strong country. Lugones preached strong country when he spoke of the time of the sword. I declare to prefer the sword, the sword clear, the illegal dynamite (...). And here we are: Chile, the region, this country, which is both a country and an honorable long sword. "
But that's not all. Borges agreed after meeting with Pinochet and after the meeting praised the dictator to the press, according to La Tercera : "He is an excellent person, for his warmth, his kindness ... I am very satisfied. "Speaking to The Nation from Santiago, the Chilean writer Volodia Teitelboim, the author of Both Borges (Sudamericana), remembers clearly everything that happened while he was living in exile.
"Those words were fatal-confirmation, because then the Latin American dictatorships and especially that of Pinochet were considered monstrous in the world." Teitelboim
rescues a key piece in the puzzle of Borges and the Nobel. This is Artur Lundkvist (1906-1991), member of the Swedish Academy, the entity granting the award.
prolific writer, left and much admired in his homeland, was Lundkvist Swedish scholar who knew more Latin American literature. It was he who introduced and translated Borges in his country. Teitelboim account in 1980 went to visit him at his home in Stockholm, asking him to assist in the Chilean magazine Araucaria. Lundkvist
agreed. Started talking about South American letters and suddenly heard a revelation. "He said the Swedish Academy will never give the Nobel to Borges. I asked him why. He said the meeting with Pinochet, praise the dictator. He added, the Swedish company can not reward someone with that background. Such a confession was strange to me much. Supposedly, a member of the Academy can not be expressed in those terms, "sums up the Chilean.
Two figures, two literatures
But politics would not only distanced Lundkvist Borges. Shuffle also personal reasons, according to Maria Esther Vázquez.
The author of Borges, glory and defeat (Tusquets) mentions the second of the facts which would have removed the author's Argentine Nobel. Note that in 1964 he accompanied a dinner with Borges Swedish writers in Stockholm. One of the guests read a poem by Georgie then ridiculed by the low to the guests. The verses were Lundkvist, which, of course, heard of everything.
"Lundkvist then became permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. And he never forgave Borges such humiliation," says Vázquez.
Thereafter, individual differences mixed with the literary. The current Swedish ambassador in Argentina, Erik Landelius, who was a close friend of the Nordic academic admits Lundkvist La Nacion that he admired the poetry of Borges, but his prose. Teitelboim agrees, and adds a nuance: "I told him tales of Argentina were a crippling complexity."
However, Lundkvist Landelius denies that he has dropped the thumb to the author of The Aleph for political and literary. "First, despite being on the left, never put the culture in the service of ideology, he argues. Second, wrote many articles enthusiastic about Borges and released in Sweden. The same story that denied had harmed the Argentine writer about the Nobel Prize and I repeat: nobody has that much power . "
The alleged duel of personalities, the ambassador said to ignore the meeting I referred to Mary Esther Vázquez. only recognizes that troubled his friend Borges ironic tone: "He was of peasant origin and preferred the more direct things."
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