Synopses & Reviews
Full of philosophical puzzles and supernatural surprises, these stories contain some of Borges's most fully realized human characters. With uncanny insight he takes us inside the minds of an unrepentant Nazi, an imprisoned Mayan priest, fanatical Christian theologians, a woman plotting vengeance on her father's "killer," and a man awaiting his assassin in a Buenos Aires guest house. This volume also contains the hauntingly brief vignettes about literary imagination and personal identity collected in The Maker, which Borges wrote as failing eyesight and public fame began to undermine his sense of self.
Review:
He more than anyone renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists. Gabriel Garca Mrquez, Carlos Fuentes, JosDonoso, and Mario Vargas Llosa have all acknowledged their debt to him. (J.M. Coetzee, The New York Review of Books) He has lifted fiction away from the flat earth where most of our novels and short stories still take place. (John Updike)
Synopsis:
Full of philosophical puzzles and supernatural surprises, these stories contain some of Borges' most fully realized human characters.