Jorge Luis Borges has been called the greatest Spanish-language writer of our century. Now for the first time in English, all of Borges's dazzling fictions are gathered into a single volume, brilliantly translated by Andrew Hurley.

From his 1935 debut with The Universal History of Iniquity, through his immensely influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, these enigmatic, elaborate, imaginative inventions display Borges's talent for turning fiction on its head by playing with form and genre and toying with language. Together these incomparable works comprise the perfect one-volume compendium for all those who have long loved Borges, and a superb introduction to the master's work for those who have yet to discover this singular genius.

"It is a deep pleasure to read the Collected Fictions of Borges in Andrew Hurley's capable new versions. Old favorites like 'Death and the Compass' and 'The Immortal' are revivified by Hurley. There is also a particular satisfaction in having all of the stories in one volume." Harold Bloom

"Though so different in style, two writers have offered us an image for the next millennium: Joyce and Borges. The first designed with words what the second designed with ideas: the original, the one and only World Wide Web. The Real Thing. The rest will remain simply virtual." Umberto Eco

"Undeniably one of the most influential writers to emerge in this century from Latin America or anywhere else, Borges (1899-1986) is best known for his short stories, all of which appear here for the first time in one volume....Elusive, erudite, melancholic, Borges's fiction will intrigue the general reader as well as the scholar." Publishers Weekly

"To discover the fictions at midcentury was stunning. There was no one like Borges. Everything else, for a short time, seemed predictable and beside the point." Mavis Gallant, The New York Times Book Review

"A Borges invention can start anywhere, hint at unlikely sources, and proceed by pseudo-banal routes to unprecedented goals; it always takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride into some previously unsuspected dimension. This collection of the great magician's work is a new translation and includes one piece never before put into English." Phoebe-Lou Adams, The Atlantic Monthly

"The erudition that enriches the fictions is certainly dazzling, as much at home with medieval Arabic science as with the classics of philosophy and literature, yet it embraced the folkish and popular as well....This collection is a valuable contribution to the English-language bookshelf of world literature, long overdue." Jamie James, The Wall Street Journal

"This...collection of the complete imaginings of the Argentine writer...is an event, and cause for celebration." Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

"Serious students of Borges must obviously still learn their Spanish, but the rest of us can be reasonably satisfied with Hurley's Collected Fictions. Yet I wish it had been a fuller, more scholarly book, its versions more convincingly definitive and superior to earlier ones. That said, it nonetheless contains the major work of probably the most influential Latin American writer of the century..." Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World

"An unparalleled treasury of marvels." Chicago Tribune

"An event worthy of celebration....Hurley deserves our enthusiastic praise for this monumental piece of work." San Francisco Chronicle

"[T]hese witty, colorful tales...have exerted an incalculable influence on the past half-century's fiction....Gloriously ruminative and bookish....Authoritative testimony to the virtues of eclecticism and cosmopolitanism, and a matchless gift to readers that belongs, as the old saying goes, in every library." Kirkus Reviews

"What a thrill to find old favorites — 'The Circular Ruins,' 'Pierre Menard,' 'The Library of Babel' — updated and boxed with lesser-known gems. An exciting publication event and an indispensable acquisition for all libraries." Library Journal

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As a poet, essayist, and short-story writer, he became one of the first Latin American writers to achieve international fame.

Andrew Hurley is a professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan.

A Universal History of Iniquity (1935) 1
Preface to the First Edition 3
Preface to the 1954 Edition 4
The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell 6
The Improbable Impostor Tom Castro 13
The Widow Ching — Pirate 19
Monk Eastman, Purveyor of Iniquities 25
The Disinterested Killer Bill Harrigan 31
The Uncivil Teacher of Court Etiquette Kotsuke no Suke 35
Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv 40
Man on Pink Corner 45
Et cetera 53
Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius 68
The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim 82
Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote 88
The Circular Ruins 96
The Lottery in Babylon 101
A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain 107
The Library of Babel 112
The Garden of Forking Paths 119
Funes, His Memory 131
The Shape of the Sword 138
The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero 143
Death and the Compass 147
The Secret Miracle 157
Three Versions of Judas 163
The End 168
The Cult of the Phoenix 171
The South 174
The Immortal 183
The Dead Man 196
The Theologians 201
Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden 208
A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829-1874) 212
Emma Zunz 215
The House of Asterion 220
The Other Death 223
Deutsches Requiem 229
Averroes' Search 235
The Zahir 242
The Writing of the God 250
Ibn-Hakam al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth 255
The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths 263
The Wait 265
The Man on the Threshold 269
The Aleph 274
The Maker 292
Dreamtigers 294
A Dialog About a Dialog 295
Toenails 296
Covered Mirrors 297
Argumentum Ornithologicum 299
The Captive 300
The Mountebank 301
Delia Elena San Marco 303
A Dialog Between Dead Men 304
The Plot 307
A Problem 308
The Yellow Rose 310
The Witness 311
Martin Fierro 312
Mutations 314
Parable of Cervantes and the Quixote 315
Paradiso, XXXI, 108 316
Parable of the Palace 317
Everything and Nothing 319
Ragnarok 321
Inferno, I, 32 323
Borges and I 324
On Exactitude in Science 325
In Memoriam, J.F.K. 326
The Ethnographer 334
Pedro Salvadores 336
Legend 338
A Prayer 339
His End and His Beginning 340
The Interloper 348
Unworthy 352
The Story from Rosendo Juarez 358
The Encounter 364
Juan Murana 370
The Elderly Lady 375
The Duel 381
The Other Duel 386
Guayaquil 390
The Gospel According to Mark 397
Brodie's Report 402
The Other 411
Ulrikke 418
The Congress 422
There Are More Things 437
The Sect of the Thirty 443
The Night of the Gifts 446
The Mirror and the Mask 451
"Undr" 455
A Weary Man's Utopia 460
The Bribe 466
Avelino Arredondo 472
The Disk 477
The Book of Sand 480
August 25, 1983 489
Blue Tigers 494
The Rose of Paracelsus 504
Shakespeare's Memory 508
A Note on the Translation 517
Acknowledgments 523
Notes to the Fictions 525