Editing Jorge Luis Borges (section)

===Early life and education===
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was born into an educated middle-class family on 24 August 1899.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Borges and His Fiction|last=Bell-Villada|first=Gene|publisher=University of Texas Press|year=1999|isbn=0-292-70877-7|location=United States of America|pages=[https://archive.org/details/borgeshisfiction00bell/page/14 14]|url=https://archive.org/details/borgeshisfiction00bell/page/14}}</ref> They lived in [[Palermo, Buenos Aires|Palermo]], a poor area of Buenos Aires. Borges's mother, [[Leonor Acevedo Suárez]], worked as a translator and came from a family of [[Criollo people|criollo]] (Spanish) origin. Her family had been much involved in the European settling of South America and the [[Argentine War of Independence]], and she spoke often of their heroic actions.<ref Name="LRB"/>

His 1929 book ''Cuaderno San Martín'' includes the poem "Isidoro Acevedo", commemorating his grandfather, Isidoro de Acevedo Laprida, a soldier of the Buenos Aires Army. A descendant of the Argentine lawyer and politician [[Francisco Narciso de Laprida]], Acevedo Laprida fought in the battles of [[Battle of Cepeda (1859)|Cepeda]] in 1859, [[Battle of Pavón|Pavón]] in 1861, and [[Battle of Los Corrales|Los Corrales]] in 1880. Acevedo Laprida died of pulmonary congestion in the house where his grandson Jorge Luis Borges was born. According to a study by Antonio Andrade, Jorge Luis Borges had Portuguese ancestry: Borges's great-grandfather, Francisco, was born in [[Portugal]] in 1770, and lived in [[Torre de Moncorvo]], in the north of the country, before he emigrated to Argentina, where he married Carmen Lafinur.

Borges's own father, [[Jorge Guillermo Borges|Jorge Guillermo Borges Haslam]], was a lawyer and wrote the novel ''El caudillo'' in 1921. Borges Haslam was born in [[Entre Ríos Province|Entre Ríos]] of Spanish, Portuguese, and English descent, the son of Francisco Borges Lafinur, a colonel, and Frances Ann Haslam, an Englishwoman. Borges Haslam grew up speaking English at home. The family frequently traveled to Europe. Borges Haslam wedded [[Leonor Acevedo Suárez]] in 1898 and their children also included the painter [[Norah Borges]], sister of Jorge Luis Borges.<ref Name="LRB"/>

At age ten, Jorge Luis Borges translated [[Oscar Wilde]]'s ''[[The Happy Prince (story)|The Happy Prince]]'' into Spanish. It was published in a local journal, but Borges's friends thought the real author was his father.<ref name="Bloom">[[Harold Bloom]] (2004) ''Jorge Luis Borges'', Infobase Publishing. {{ISBN|978-950-07-1121-0}}</ref> Borges Haslam was a lawyer and psychology teacher who harboured literary aspirations. Borges said his father "tried to become a writer and failed in the attempt", despite the 1921 opus ''El caudillo''. Jorge Luis Borges wrote, "As most of my people had been soldiers and I knew I would never be, I felt ashamed, quite early, to be a bookish kind of person and not a man of action."<ref Name="LRB"/>

Jorge Luis Borges was taught at home until the age of 11 and was bilingual in Spanish and English, reading [[Shakespeare]] in the latter at the age of twelve.<ref Name="LRB"/> The family lived in a large house with an English library of over one thousand volumes; Borges would later remark that "if I were asked to name the chief event in my life, I should say my father's library."<ref>Borges, Jorge Luis, "Autobiographical Notes", ''The New Yorker'', 19 September 1970.</ref>

His father gave up practicing law due to the failing eyesight that would eventually affect his son. In 1914, the family moved to [[Geneva]], Switzerland, and spent the next decade in Europe.<ref Name="LRB"/> In Geneva, Borges Haslam was treated by an eye specialist, while his son and daughter attended school. Jorge Luis learned French, read [[Thomas Carlyle]] in English, and began to read philosophy in German. In 1917, when he was eighteen, he met writer Maurice Abramowicz and began a literary friendship that lasted for the remainder of his life.<ref Name="LRB"/> He received his [[baccalauréat]] from the [[Collège de Genève]] in 1918.<ref>Gene H. Bell-Villada,[https://archive.org/details/borgeshisfiction00bell/page/16 <!-- quote=borges  Collège de Genève baccalauréat. --> ''Borges and His Fiction: A Guide to His Mind and Art''], University of Texas Press (1999), p. 16; {{ISBN|978-0-292-70878-5}}</ref><ref group='Note' name='f'>Edwin Williamson suggests in ''Borges'' (Viking, 2004) that Borges did not finish his ''baccalauréat'' (pp.&nbsp;79–80): "he cannot have been too bothered about his ''baccalauréat'', not least because he loathed and feared examination. (He was never to finish his high school education, in fact)."</ref> The Borges family decided that, due to political unrest in Argentina, they would remain in Switzerland during the war. After [[World War I]], the family spent three years living in various cities: [[Lugano]], Barcelona, [[Mallorca]], Seville, and Madrid.<ref Name="LRB"/> They remained in Europe until 1921.

At that time, Borges discovered the writings of [[Arthur Schopenhauer]] and [[Gustav Meyrink]]'s ''[[The Golem (Meyrink)|The Golem]]'' (1915), which became influential to his work. In Spain, Borges became a member of the [[avant-garde]], anti-[[Modernismo]] [[Ultraism|Ultraist]] literary movement, inspired by [[Guillaume Apollinaire]] and [[Filippo Tommaso Marinetti]], close to the [[Imagist]]s. His first poem, "Hymn to the Sea", written in the style of [[Walt Whitman]], was published in the magazine ''Grecia''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wilson|first=Jason|title=Jorge Luis Borges|url=https://archive.org/details/jorgeluisborgesr00wils|url-access=limited|page=[https://archive.org/details/jorgeluisborgesr00wils/page/n38 37]|isbn=1-86189-286-1|publisher=Reaktion Books|year=2006}}</ref> While in Spain, he met such noted Spanish writers as [[Rafael Cansinos Assens]] and [[Ramón Gómez de la Serna]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Jorge Luis Borges|author=Wilson, Jason|date=2006|publisher=Reaktion|isbn=1-86189-286-1|location=London|pages=45–47|oclc=65768057}}</ref>
[[File:Borges 1921.jpg|thumb|Borges in 1921]]