Editing Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (section)

==Context in Borges's life and works==
"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" formed part of a 1941 collection of stories called ''[[The Garden of Forking Paths]]''.

At the time he wrote "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" in early 1940, Borges was little known outside of Argentina. He was working in a local public library in Buenos Aires and had certain local fame as a translator of works from English, French, and German, and as an ''avant-garde'' poet and essayist (having published regularly in widely read Argentinian periodicals such as ''El Hogar'', as well as in many smaller magazines, such as [[Victoria Ocampo]]'s ''[[Sur (magazine)|Sur]]'', where "Tlön..." was originally published). In the previous two years, he had been through a great deal: his father had died in 1938, and on Christmas Eve 1938, Borges himself had suffered a severe head wound in an accident; during treatment for that wound, he nearly died of a blood infection.

For some time before his father's death and his accident, Borges had been drifting toward writing fiction. His ''{{lang|es|Historia universal de la infamia}}'' (''Universal History of Infamy''), published in 1935, used a baroque writing style and the techniques of fiction to tell the stories of seven historical rogues. These ranged from "{{lang|es|El espantoso redentor Lazarus Morell}}" ("The Dread Redeemer [[John Murrell (bandit)|Lazarus Morell]]")—who promised liberty to slaves in the American South, but brought them only death—to "El incivil maestro de ceremonias [[Kokushi (official)|Kotsuké no Suké]]" ("The Insulting Master of Etiquette Kôtsuké no Suké"), the story of the central figure in the [[Japan]]ese ''[[47 Ronin|Tale of the 47 Ronin]]'', also known as [[Kira Yoshinaka|Kira Kozuke-no-Suke Yoshinaka]]. Borges had also written a number of clever literary forgeries disguised as translations from authors such as [[Emanuel Swedenborg]] or from [[Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena|Don Juan Manuel's]] ''[[Tales of Count Lucanor]]''. Recovering from his head wound and infection, Borges decided it was time to turn to the writing of fiction as such.

Several of these fictions, notably "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and "[[Pierre Menard (fictional character)|Pierre Menard]], autor del Quijote" ("Pierre Menard, Author of ''The Quixote''", published 10 months earlier in ''[[Sur (magazine)|Sur]]'', and also included in ''{{lang|es|El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan}}''), could only have been written by an experienced essayist. Both of these works apply Borges's essayistic style to the largely imaginary subject matter. His massive erudition is as evident in these fictions as in any non-fictional essay in his body of works.

Buenos Aires was, at this time, a thriving intellectual center. While Europe was immersed in [[World War II]], Argentina, and Buenos Aires in particular, flourished intellectually and artistically. (This situation was to change during the presidency of [[Juan Perón]] and the subsequent military governments, when many of Argentina's leading intellectuals went into exile, something that Borges and most of his circle did not contemplate.){{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}

Borges's first volume of fiction failed to garner the literary prizes many in his circle expected for it. [[Victoria Ocampo]] dedicated a large portion of the July 1942 issue of ''[[Sur (magazine)|Sur]]'' to a "Reparation for Borges"; numerous leading writers and critics from Argentina and throughout the Spanish-speaking world contributed writings to the project, which probably brought his work as much attention as a prize would have.

Over the next few decades "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and Borges's other fiction from this period formed a key part of the body of work that put Latin America on the international literary map. Borges was to become more widely known throughout the world as a writer of extremely original short stories than as a poet and essayist.