“The Challenge” by Jorge Luis Borges Translated by d by Norman Thomas di Giovanni All over the Argentine runs a story that may belong to legend or to history or (which may be just another way of saying it belongs to legend) to both things at once. Its best recorded versions are to be found… Continue reading “The Challenge” — Jorge Luis Borges
“Legend” by Jorge Luis Borges Translated by Andrew Hurley Cain and Abel came upon each other after Abel’s death. They were walking through the desert, and they recognized each other from afar, since both men were very tall. The two brothers sat on the ground, made a fire, and ate. They sat silently, as weary… Continue reading “Legend,” a very short tale from Jorge Luis Borges
I’m a huge sucker for Avon-Bard massmarket paperbacks, so I couldn’t pass up Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges. (The conversations are with the late writer Richard Burgin.) I also picked up a nifty 1976 paperback of Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics. Here’s one of those cosmicomics, “All at One Point” (English translation by William Weaver): “All at One Point”… Continue reading Borges/Calvino (Books acquired, 23 June 2021)
“Mutations” by Jorge Luis Borges Translated by Andrew Hurley In a hallway I saw a sign with an arrow pointing the way, and I was struck by the thought that that inoffensive symbol had once been a thing of iron, an inexorable, mortal projectile that had penetrated the flesh of men and lions and clouded… Continue reading “Mutations,” a very short tale from Jorge Luis Borges
Herbario, 1928 by Norah Borges (1901–1998)
“Ulrikke” by Jorge Luis Borges Translated by Andrew Hurley Hann tekr sverthtt Gram ok leggri methal their abert — Volsunga Saga, 27 My story will be faithful to reality, or at least to my personal recollection of reality, which is the same thing. The events took place only a short while ago, but I know… Continue reading “Ulrikke” — Jorge Luis Borges
“The Sect of the Thirty” by Jorge Luis Borges Translated by Andrew Hurley The original manuscript may be consulted in the library at the University of Leyden; it is in Latin, but its occasional Hellenism justifies the conjecture that it may be a translation from the Greek. According to Leisegang, it dates from the fourth… Continue reading “The Sect of the Thirty” — Jorge Luis Borges
“Who Needs Poets?” by Jorge Luis Borges The poet’s trade, the writer’s trade, is a strange one. Chesterton said: “Only one thing is needful–everything.” To a writer this everything is more than an encompassing word; it is literal. It stands for the chief, for the essential, human experiences. For example, a writer needs loneliness, and… Continue reading “Who Needs Poets?” — Jorge Luis Borges
“Parable of Cervantes and the Quixote” by Jorge Luis Borges Translated by Andrew Hurley Weary of his land of Spain, an old soldier of the king’s army sought solace in the vast geographies of Ariosto, in that valley of the moon in which one finds the time that is squandered by dreams, and in the… Continue reading “Parable of Cervantes and the Quixote” — Jorge Luis Borges
“Avelino Arredondo” by Jorge Luis Borges translated by Andrew Hurley The incident occurred in Montevideo in 1897. Every Saturday the friends took the same table, off to one side, in the Café del Globo, like the poor honest men they were, knowing they cannot invite their friends home, or perhaps escaping it. They were all… Continue reading “Avelino Arredondo” — Jorge Luis Borges
More Thomas Pynchon letters here. Via Reddit user Forest Limit.
“The Shape of the Sword” by Jorge Luis Borges Translated by Andrew Hurley His face was traversed by a vengeful scar, an ashen and almost perfect arc that sliced from the temple on one side of his head to his cheek on the other. His true name does not matter; everyone in Tacuarembó called him… Continue reading “The Shape of the Sword,” a short story by Jorge Luis Borges
“The Yellow Rose” by Jorge Luis Borges Translated by Andrew Hurley It was neither that afternoon nor the next that Giambattista Marino died— that illustrious man proclaimed by the unanimous mouths of Fame (to use an image that was dear to him) as the new Homer or the new Dante—and yet the motionless and silent… Continue reading Read “The Yellow Rose” a very short story by Jorge Luis Borges
“The Mountebank” by Jorge Luis Borges Translated by Andrew Hurley One day in July, 1952, the man dressed in mourning weeds appeared in that little village on the Chaco River.* He was a tall, thin man with vaguely Indian features and the inexpressive face of a half-wit or a mask. The townsfolk treated him with… Continue reading “The Mountebank” — Jorge Luis Borges
“Herman Melville” by Jorge Luis Borges He was always surrounded by the sea of his elders, The Saxons, who named the ocean The Whale-Road, thereby uniting The two immense things, the whale And the seas it endlessly ploughs. The sea was always his. By the time his eyes First took in the great waters… Continue reading “Herman Melville” — Jorge Luis Borges
“A Problem” by Jorge Luis Borges Translated by Andrew Hurley Let us imagine that a piece of paper with a text in Arabic on it is discovered in Toledo, and that paleographers declare the text to have been written by that same Cede Hamete Benengeli from whom Cervantes derived Don Quixote. In it, we read… Continue reading “A Problem,” a three-paragraph story by Jorge Luis Borges
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