Writer María Kodama, widow of Jorge Luis Borges, dies at 86 years of age

The writer María Kodama, widow of Jorge Luis Borges, has died this Sunday at the age of 86, according to the Argentine news portal Infobae.

The author of 'La divisa punzó' has died in Vicente López (Buenos Aires), due to health problems that had made her mobility difficult in recent months.

Her lawyer, Fernando Soto, has fired her with a message on social networks: "Your friend and your lawyer fire you. Now you will enter the "great sea" with your dear Borges. May you rest in peace, María," he wrote.

Kodama was born in Buenos Aires on March 10, 1937, the daughter of María Antonia Schweizer, of Swiss-German, English, and Spanish descent, and the Japanese chemist Yosaburo Kodama.

She studied at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires and in a course she met Borges in 1974, when she was 16 years old, with whom she began to relate due to their shared interest in Anglo-Saxon languages. In 1986 they married, two months before the death of the writer. Since then, she has worked to preserve and disseminate the Argentine's literary legacy.

Together they signed the books 'Brief Anglo-Saxon Anthology', a compilation of one of their great joint passions, English literature; and 'Atlas', a book of his travels published in 1984 with the impressions of the writer.

Years later, in 1988, Kodama created the Jorge Luis Borges International Foundation, which he chaired until his death.