The author of Hopscotch and End of the Game, Julio Cortazar is identified as one of the leading Spanish American writers of the 20th century. Born in Brussels in 1914, Cortazar grew up in Argentina, working as a teacher and translator while developing his distinctive writing style. An admirer of Edgar Allan Poe and Bop jazz, Cortazar used literature as a form of experimentation, and a way to express his own political views. Critics have noted that Cortazar's writing is marked by a quest for authenticity, and through his writing the careful reader can find glimpses of the problems and questions with which he struggled.