Q 01/05

Borges was a short-story writer, poet and essayist from which country?

A) Argentina

B) Mexico

C) Chile

D) Uruguay

Answer · why

A) Argentina

He was born in Palermo, then a poor district of Buenos Aires, in 1899.

Q 02/05

Which 1944 collection became Borges's most famous book and made him known worldwide?

A) Labyrinths

B) El Aleph

C) Ficciones

D) The Book of Sand

Answer · why

C) Ficciones

It grew out of the 1941 volume The Garden of Forking Paths plus a second section called Artifices.

Q 03/05

Borges shared the first International Formentor Prize in 1961 with which writer?

A) Samuel Beckett

B) Albert Camus

C) Vladimir Nabokov

D) Graham Greene

Answer · why

A) Samuel Beckett

The prize brought Borges, then largely untranslated in English, sudden international attention.

Q 04/05

Which condition had fully overtaken Borges by the age of 55?

A) Blindness

B) Deafness

C) Paralysis

D) Aphasia

Answer · why

A) Blindness

His father had also lost his sight, and Borges never learned to read Braille.

Q 05/05

In 1955 Borges was appointed director of which Argentine institution?

A) National Theatre

B) National Academy of Letters

C) National Museum of Fine Arts

D) National Library

Answer · why

D) National Library

He got the job from the provisional government that had just toppled Perón.