Este artigo examina condicionantes e práticas sociais que viabilizaram a trajetória literária de Jorge Luis Borges, autor que teria logrado apagar as marcas de sua vida pessoal. Por meio da análise dos textos de juventude, das relações familiares e do campo literário argentino no início do século XX, o artigo deslinda novas chaves para a compreensão da obra borgeana.

This essay seeks the social practices that made possible the literary trajectory of Jorge Luis Borges, author who would have erased the traces of his personal life. Taking as a guideline his early writings, family relations and the Argentine literary field in the first decades of the XXth century, the article suggests new keys to the interpretation of Borges’ work.