Will I love Ficciones?

“What is this?” I asked myself on first reading. “Fiction?”

Each short piece contained a moving story that was like a jewel to view and think about, but something was strange, in a wondrous way. It seemed like fiction posing as journalism, like the great classical Chinese tale “A Record of the Peach Blossom Land” by Tao Yuanming (6th century) that inspired my most popular play.

It upended my concept of short story, and of art, opening doors to ways of writing. “Fiction in disguise.” Astonishingly creative, yet peaceful and profound. Wildly creative themes and twists narrated by a quiet… show more.

I read these short stories when I was twelve, reread them countless times as an adult, and was forever changed. Entering these pages is like journeying through the looking glass, only to enter a labyrinth of mystery, secrets, and chance. It may seem like an outlier from the books above. Yet Borges was a pioneer in speculative fiction and one of a kind. One of the stories has been called the greatest ever written. Just saying.

The Argentine literary icon’s mode of magical realism is perhaps the most different from others, the one that stands most apart. Couched in history and intellectualism, many of his stories read at first as essays until they dart into some realm of the fantastical to make a startling point about identity, storytelling, or human existence. No writer uses the far reaches of the possible to make you think more than Borges.