It's a series of essays on writers like de Quincy, Chesterton, Stevenson, Oscar Wild and others. At age 24 Borges went blind, as his father had, and he said: "After that, all the world was in my head, and I could see better because I could see all my dreams clearly." His other great book is called Labyrinths, in which there's a story called Funes Memorius and also a story about a man who invents Servantes's great novel Don Quixote word for word, never having read it. And also there's one called The Garden of Forked Paths and then one called The Draghtman's Contract, and that was made into a movie by Peter Greenway; it was one of the most modernistic movies ever made by anybody! Borges is right up there with Joyce and Beckett as far as experimental, innovative literature, written in our time: A must read! Borges worked at the National Library in Buenes Aires, and when Peron took power in Argentina, Borges lost his job. He came to Harvard in the 60's to give the Eliot Norton Lectures, a great honor to Harvard. Copyright 2011 by Nicholas Van Vactor
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