Jorge Luis Borges
27 Feb 2017 16:30Argentine writer of sheer, unalloyed genius.
Influenced by: Valery; Bertrand Russell (particularly Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy and Analysis of Mind). The Thousand and One Nights.
Influence on: Italo Calvino; Umberto Eco; too many others to list. Herbert Simon recounts a very amusing story, in his memoirs, about meeting Borges and discussing labyrinths...
- Recommended (well, really, everything, but, if one must be selective...):
- The translations in the new editions of his English works (Collected Fictions and Selected Non-Fiction) are supposed to be much more reliable than those in previous editions. Not reading Spanish, I couldn't say. I do remain fond of the old ones, as in Ficciones and Labyrinths
- "The Library of Babel" [on-line]
- "Funes, the Memorious"
- "The Garden of Forking Paths"
- "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
- To read:
- The Book of Imaginary Beings
- Collected Poems
