The article deals with the prolific creative period of the prominent Argentine prose writer of the twentieth century Adolfo Bioy Casares – 1940-s. This is the time when his original artistic style was formed, which is studied in the context of the interrelation of elements and features, inherent in both popular and “elevated” literature. The analysis of the novel The Invention of Morel (1940) and the short story In Memory of Pauline (1948) allows us to trace how in Bioy Casares’s prose the features of the crime fiction genre are organically combined with philosophical fiction, and what enriching imprint on this artistic experiment has been left by the collaboration of the writer with Jorge Luis Borges and Silvina Ocampo.
Argentine prose of the twentieth century; Adolfo Bioy Casares; Jorge Luis Borges; Silvina Ocampo; popular literature; crime fiction; philosophical fiction.