His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.


It Is a Tiger that Destroys Me: Latin American Literature as Weird Fiction
NecronomiCon 2019 Panel
Gabriel Mesa, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Allen B. Ruch, and Eric Schaller. 
This panel occurred on Borges’ 120th birthday at the NecronomiCon 2019 in Providence, Rhode Island. A discussion devoted to Borges, Latin American literature, and Weird fiction, the panel was moderated by Garden of Forking Paths editor Allen B. Ruch, and featured Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Gabriel Mesa, and Eric Schaller. It was recorded by The Outer Dark, and is available on their site, which has more details about the contributors, and offers a wonderful reading list.

“A Poem by Oscar Wilde
By Jorge Luis Borges
Translation by Suzanne Jill Levine
A short essay on Oscar Wilde from 1925, previously available only in Spanish. Translated by Suzanne Jill Levine, this essay is an “outtake” from the Viking/Penguin Selected Non-Fictions.

The Zahir and I
Fiction by Andrew Hurley
Borges translator Andrew Hurley delivered this amusing Borges parody at a recent Borges conference.

Jorge Luis Borges at 100
Lecture by Carlos Fuentes
Notes by Allen B. Ruch
The Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes delivered a presentation about Borges on 18 October 1999 at New York City’s 92nd Street Y. The Garden of Forking Paths covered this wonderful lecture and took copious notes, producing this review/summary.

The Secret Images
Photographs by Sean Kernan
In The Secret Books, award-winning photographer and artist Sean Kernan combined Borges texts with haunting photographs. Here, in a Garden of Forking Paths exclusive, he offers a glimpse at the unpublished photographs. [TBD]

Borgesian Book Review Contest
Borges famously wrote: “The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes! A better course of procedure is to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a resume, a commentary… More reasonable, more inept, more indolent, I have preferred to write notes upon imaginary books.”

In this spirit, The Modern Word sponsored a “Borgesian Book review” contest. The instructions read: “In the spirit of Borges’ remark, write a book review of an imaginary book. The book may be from any time period, it may be fiction or non-fiction, and it’s author may be either an invention or an actual writer.”

The results of the Borgesian Book Review may be seen here. [TBD]


Author: Allen B. Ruch
Last Modified: 7 November 2019
Main Borges Page: The Garden of Forking Paths
Contact: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com

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