Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on August 24, 1899, to Jorge Guillermo Borges Haslam and his wife Leonor Acevedo Suárez. Borges grew up in a bookish and genteel household, in which memories of family history and accomplishments were strong. From his paternal grandmother Fanny Haslam he learned to speak and read English, and even as a child he had a strongly-developed interest in literature, language, and the written word generally.

In 1914, the Borges family settled in Geneva, Switzerland, where Jorge Luis and his sister Norah continued their schooling. Jorge Luis continued to read widely, learning French and German, and, in 1918, receiving the baccalaurèat from the Collège de Genève. At the end of the First World War the Borges family did not immediately return to Argentina but spent several years in Spain. In Madrid, Borges became involved in the avant garde Ultraist movement, the seeds of which he took back with him to Argentina.

In 1921, Borges began the short-lived broadsheet poetry serial publication , following in 1922 with , the second series (1924-1926) of which contained contributions by Borges in all but one of its fifteen numbers. Later in the decade he was a frequent contributor to , and, from 1931, the journal .

Throughout the 1930s Borges pursued a career in literary journalism, writing poetry, short stories, and essays. From 1938 he was a cataloger in a branch of the Biblioteca Pública de Buenos Aires, a position that, it is said, permitted him ample time to work at his career as a literary writer.

During the 1940s, Borges embarked on a career as a public speaker and teacher, while continuing with his writing. During that decade his two best-known titles, (1944) and (1949), both collections of short stories, were published. With the consolidation of political power by Juan Perón in Argentina in 1946 Borges was forced from his position in the Buenos Aires library. Quixotically, Perón's gesture had the effect of promoting Borges as a spokesman for Argentina's political opposition.

By the 1950s, Borges's impaired vision was rapidly failing, and he was obliged to live with his mother so she might act as his secretary. With the ouster of Perón in 1955 Borges was named director of Argentina's Biblioteca Nacional, and as the culmination of growing regard for his work on the international scene he was in 1961 the co-recipient (with Samuel Beckett) of the Prix International. As a consequence of that prize, Borges said, my books mushroomed overnight throughout the western world. Concurrently with the Prix International Borges was named to the Tinker Chair at the University of Texas, leading to a lecture tour of the United States.

Through the 1960s and beyond, as he was better-known and increasingly widely-read, Borges traveled and lectured extensively. In 1967, Borges, working with the American scholar Norman Thomas Di Giovanni, began a project of translating his works into English. The program of translation, which began with a bilingual edition entitled , continued until 1972. On the domestic political front, the return of Juan Perón from exile and his election to the presidency in 1973 led to Borges's immediate resignation as director of the Bibioteca Nacional.

His 1967 marriage to Elsa Astete Millán failed after three years and Borges turned once again to his mother as secretary. Following her death in 1975, María Kodama became Borges's secretary. In the last years of his life he bequeathed his literary properties to her, and shortly before his own death in Geneva, on 14 June 1986, Borges and Kodama were married.