One word: Borges. Strangely, he isn't mentioned in the article, although his influence pervades book culture, even to this day, especially in Argentina, but also abroad.
Borges, Quiroga, Sábato, Cortázar. The number of talented, groundbreaking writers is astounding. Plus an incredibly active culture of underground writers and poets.
Borges identified himself more as a librarian than writer. He was Director of the national library for a long time, until politicians removed him. His one line CV said librarian.
I really enjoy a lot of Borges' work, but this is nonsense.
His literature is respected across the aisle, but also considered to be very right-wing (he was pro-military dictatorships, anti-feminist, etc.)
To chalk a majority of Argentinean literary culture to him would be to severely underestimate how popular things like Psychoanalysis and Zizek are over there.
Borges may have been a conservative, but it never shows in his writing.
I would not call him right-wing at all, but conservative. He was a man of the early-mid-20th century. Who knows if his views today would be the same. Society in general is more progressive now than during his lifetime.
A reason not to call Borges right-wing is his strong opposition to the Mussolini-admirer colonel who was one of the prominent members of the coup of '43, later president, and later a guest of Franco. For being against this fascist, Borges was fired from his position as director of the National Library, and relegated to being an inspector of fowl and cage animals in municipal markets.
Some of the replies at this assume "Borges" as the cause, the response to "Why".
It can also read as a simple association, as in "this article brings one word to my mind: Borges". In Borges, libraries are a recurrent theme, as there are labyrinths, and Argentinian folklore, timeless, godly structures, etc.
