Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better myself.
Borges Reviews
Since the Garden of Forking Paths was founded, the Web has proliferated with Borges reviews, and collecting them all would be a task worthy of, well…Google. Rather than replicate a search engine, this page gathers together a handful of the more famous, interesting, or eclectic reviews of Borges work and Borges criticism. It begins with original reviews published here at the Garden.
Garden of Forking Paths Reviews
Borges In/And/On Film
Edgardo Cozarinsky. Lumen Books, 1988.
This classic and often-reprinted book holds all of Borges’ movie reviews, along with essays on film and reviews of cinematic Borges adaptations written by Edgardo Cozarinsky.
This Craft of Verse
Jorge Luis Borges. Harvard University Press, 2000.
Rediscovered at the time of the Borges Centennial, these six lectures were delivered by Borges at Harvard University from 1967-1968. Transcribed from the original recordings, Harvard University Press also offers the recordings as a set of compact discs.
The Secret Books
Sean Kernan. Leetes Island Books, 1999.
A haunting homage to Borges by photographer Sean Kernan. [TBD]
A New Universal History of Infamy
Rhys Hughes. Ministry of Whimsy Press, 2003.
A charming update of Borges’ first story collection by the Welsh writer Rhys Hughes.
Cy-Borges: Memories of the Posthuman in the Work of Jorge Luis Borges
Stefan Herbrechter & Ivan Callus, ed. Bucknell University Press, 2009.
A collection of academic papers exploring posthuman elements in Borges’ work.
Jorge Luis Borges: The Last Interview
Melville House, 2013.
This volume contains an extended excerpt from Richard Burgin’s 1968 book, Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges, a 1980 interview conducted by Artful Dodge, and of course Borges’ final interview, a fascinating exchange with Gloria López Lecube for La Isla FM Radio in Argentina.
Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations, Vols. 1-3
Seagull Books, 2014–2017.
From 1984–1985, Osvaldo Ferrari conducted over one hundred interviews with Borges for Argentine radio. These three volumes are the first time these dialogues have been translated into English.
The People In the Room
Norah Lange. Translation by Charlotte Whittle. And Other Stories, 2018.
The first English translation of Norah Lange’s 1950 novel, Personas en la sala. A member of the Buenos Aires “Florida Group” that included Borges—who unsuccessfully vied for her affections—Norah Lange was an early proponent of “ultraism.”
Selected Offsite Reviews
Collected Fictions
Jorge Luis Borges. Translation by Andrew Hurley. Viking, 1998.
Borges’ Dark Mirror
Review by J.M. Coetzee.
22 October 1998, New York Review of Books.
A comprehensive look at Collected Fictions by Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee. [Paywall]
The World, by Jorge
Review by Alberto Manguel.
3 January 1999, The Guardian.
Author, translator, and former Borges reader Alberto Manguel calls Hurley’s translations “barely serviceable.”
Borges Under Review
May 2000. The Complete Review.
An essay all about critical responses to Collected Fictions.
Unthinking Thinking: Jorge Luis Borges, Mathematics, and the New Physics
Floyd Merrel. Purdue University Press, 1991.
Floyd Merrel’s Unthinking Thinking
Review by Silvia G. Dapía.
1996, Variaciones Borges.
Dapía finds Merrel’s book on Borges and mathematics “a fascinating book, recommendable for its goals, scope, and knowledge of secondary material.”
Borges: A Life
Edwin Williamson. Viking, 2004.
Taking Borges to the Head-Shrinker
Review by Bob Blaisdell.
8 August 2004, San Francisco Chronicle.
Blaisdell critiques Williamson’s approach as intrusively psychoanalytical.
Borges: A Life
Review by Michael Dirda.
8 August 2004, Washington Post.
Dirda finds Williamson’s work “a useful and important biography, if slightly flawed in its focus.”
“Borges: A Life” by Edwin Williamson
Review by Allen Barra.
27 August 2004, Salon.com.
In a rather idiosyncratic review, Barra speaks favorably of Williamson’s biography.
The Immortal
Review by Christopher Hitchens.
September 2004, The Atlantic.
The incomparable Hitch labels Williamson’s biography as “althogether first-rate.”
Sightless Seer of Buenos Aires
9 September 2004, The Economist.
A favorable, but fairly descriptive and uninspired, review.
Borges on the Couch
Review by David Foster Wallace.
7 November 2004, New York Times.
A review by the great novelist David Foster Wallace.
Other Borges Reviews
A Modern Master
Review by Paul de Man
19 November 1964, New York Review of Books.
The celebrated literary critic reviews two of early translations of Borges’s work, Labyrinth and Dreamtigers. [Paywall]
Imaginary Borges
Review by William H. Gass.
20 November 1969, New York Review of Books.
Novelist William Gass on Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings, Richard Burgin’s Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges, and Ronald Christ’s The Narrow Act: Borges’ Art of Allusion. [Paywall]
Jorge Luis Borges and His ‘Bitch’
Review by Ian Thomson.
3 May 2014. The Spectator.
A damning appraisal of Norman Thomas di Giovanni’s biography, Georgie & Elsa: Jorge Luis Borges and his Wife: The Untold Story.
Editor: Allen B. Ruch
Last Modified: 28 August 2024
Main Borges Page: The Garden of Forking Paths
Contact: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com