Jorge Luis Borges is one of the seminal figures in twentieth-century literature. His influence on the art of narrative and on the very way people think about writing has been incalculable. All postwar fiction, from Garcia Marquez to Fuentes, Updike to Barth, Calvino to Eco, bears Borges's imprint--in spite of the fact that Borges did not write a single novel.Born at the turn of the century in Argentina, Borges grew up with cosmopolitan parents who...