COLLECTED FICTIONS - Jorge Luis Borges -

Penguin USA - US $20.00

I have seen Borges described as the greatest Spanish writer of the 20th century, the most influential Latin American writer of the century, I have seen him linked with Kafka and Joyce as an unparalleled storyteller, he is often called one of the most remarkable writers of all, and yet somehow or another I have never read him.

Well that is all about to change as I have been given a copy of his Collected Fictions . Here is the opening paragraph of the inside front cover blurb:

Now, for the first time in English, all of Borge's dazzling fictions are
collected in a single volume - from his 1935 debut with The Universal
History of Iniquity through his immensely influential collections of Ficciones and The Aleph, the enigmatic prose poems of The Maker, up to his final work in the 1980's, Shakespeare's Memory.

This collection, and it's a huge volume, has been published to commemorate the hundreth anniversary of Borge's birth, and it brings together all of his stories, all in new English translations by Andrew Hurley.

It is going to take me sometime to read this because of a heavy book review commitment presently but I shall report back in due course.

Meantime it is a joy just to hold this most handsome, beautifully and thoughtfully designed, deckle-edged volume. Many thanks to my daughter for this gift, a great piece of publishing.