BORGES, A READER

Born in Buenos Aires, Jorge Borges (1899-1986) was educated in Europe and returned to Buenos Aires in 1921, where he co-founded several avant-garde literary periodicals. In 1955, after the fall of Juan Peron, whom he vigorously opposed, he was appointed director of the Argentine National Library. With Samuel Beckett he was awarded the 1961 $10,000 International Publishers Prize, which helped to establish him as one of the most prominent writers in the world.

Borges regularly taught and lectured throughout the United States and Europe. His ideas have been a profound influence on writers throughout the Western world and on literary and critical theory. A prolific writer of essays, short stories, and plays, Borges regarded people's endeavors to understand an incomprehensible world as fiction; hence, his fiction is metaphysical and based on what he called 'an esthetics of the intellect'. Some critics have called him 'a mystic'.

This collection was published before Borges died, so it contains what he thought were among his best pieces. It also contains pieces never before translated into English.

It has not been read but the original owner of this book wrote her name (not unattractively) on the front endpaper. There are no other marks in or on it, aside from a production crease at the top of the spine. 368 pages. The original bookstore bookmark is still inside.