Los libros y la noche

The Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) is considered an important figure in South American literature and one of the leading contemporary writers of fiction. He was born in Buenos Aires and in 1914 moved with his family to Geneva, where he spent his school years. Before returning to his native country in 1921, he lived in Spain for two years, where he started writing experimental poetry. In 1923, his first collection of poems was published, entitled Fervor de Buenos Aires. In 1938, he accepted a job in a library in Buenos Aires, where he led a relatively simple life and mainly read books. In 1955, after the downfall of president Juan Peron, the new government appointed him director of the national library, located in the capital. Borges published both poems and prose, but he mainly owes his international reputation to his short stories. The film Los libros y la noche is constructed around Borges’ work. In dramatised scenes, alternated with interview excerpts and archive footage, we see the writer as an inhabitant of his own dreams and fantasies, wandering in time and in the labyrinth of the library books. The actor Walter Santa Ana brings Borges’ world to life. For example, the story that was published as El libro de arena (The Book of Sand, 1975) shows the protagonist when he is visited by a bible salesman, who hands him a book without a beginning or an end and with an infinite number of pages. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)