Jorge Luis Borges

Description

Jorge Luis Borges (1899—1986) is one of the most influential literary figures of the twentieth century. His short stories, poems, essays, and translations explore Argentine mythology, mysticism, philosophical ideas, and myriad other topics. This Very Short Introduction gives an engaging overview of Borges's life and the major themes of his oeuvre.

Ilan Stavans places Borges in the context of tango and gaucho literature and follows his transformation into an explorer of time and metaphysical dimensions across cultures. As an inveterate reader of Cervantes, Shakespeare, Flaubert, Coleridge, and The Arabian Nights, Borges has become closely associated with the book as an object of knowledge and of the imagination. Stavans demonstrates how Borges's evolution as a writer allowed him to revolutionize contemporary literature and thought in fundamental ways through such works as Ficciones, Other Inquisitions, and Labyrinths, and shows how his career redefined Latin American as well as global literature.

About the author

Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College and a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary. He is the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Latino Studies and author of The Seventh Heaven: Travels Through Jewish Latin America and Borges, the Jew, as well as many other books.

Table of contents

List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Borges as symbol
1. A "capsuled" life
2. Misreadings
3. Oblivion
4. The taxonomy of evil
5. Translation matters
6. Against parochialism
7. Games with time and the infinite
8. The limits of language
Epilogue: Borgesian
References
Further reading
Index