This essay quickly describes Julio Cortazar's life, and his literary works.

Julio Cortázar

An Argentine writer and master of short stories, Julio Cortázar is truly a man for the ages. Most of Cortázar's stories have to deal with hallucinations or obsessions. Themes in his stories usually have to deal with identity, and the hidden reality behind everyday experiences. Cortázar, a radical, experienced many of these "reality checks" while being involved in the Cuban revolution, giving him a unique angle, which would make his career.

Julio Cortázar was born in Brussels, Belgium. His parents were there on business. When he was four years old, his family returned to Buenos Aires, where he grew up in a suburb. Cortázar went to the Escuela Normal de Profesores Mariano Acosta, a teachers training college. In 1935 he received a degree as a secondary-level teacher. He studied two years at the University of Buenos Aires and taught in secondary schools in Bolívar, Chivilcoy, and Mendoza.

In 1944-45 he was a professor of French literature at the University of Cuyo, Mendoza.

Español: Jorge Luis Borges

Borges in L'Hôtel, Paris in 1969

Jorge Luís Borges 1951

There, he joined a protest and was jailed for a short time. After his release he left the university. From 1946 to 1948 he was a director of a publishing company in Buenos Aires. He became certified in law and languages and worked then as a translator.

Los Reyes (1949) was Cortázar's first work of fantasy. The long poem was a meditation of the fate of the Minotaur in his labyrinth. Cortázar's first collection of short stories, Bestiario, appeared in 1951. It included 'Casa tomada' (A House Taken Over), where a middle-aged brother and sister find that their house is invaded by unidentified people. The story was published by Jorge Luis Borges in a magazine called Los anales de Buenos Aires; Borges's sister illustrated it.

In 1951, in opposition to Peron's regime, Cortázar moved to Paris,