ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up the way Jorge Luis Borges contributed to the creation of the consciousness of his time and the ways in which he attempted to handle the psychological problems attendant to that consciousness in his life and in the life of his literary work. It offers a brief biographical sketch of Borges and then provides a close reading of his story "The library of Babel". The chapter contrasts the ways in which Kafka and Borges attempted to come to terms with the psychic pain as well as the delight made possible by human consciousness. Borges's world of language comprised simultaneity of English and Spanish. His paternal grandmother, Fanny Haslam, was born and raised in Staffordshire, England, and moved to Buenos Aires in her twenties, where she met and married an Argentine military officer, Francisco Borges. The psychological strain for Borges of having to earn a living as a public lecturer was enormous.
