Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings (Twentieth Century Classics) - Softcover

Jorge Luis Borges

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014018029X ISBN 13: 9780140180299

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd, 1989

Synopsis

Gathers stories about other worlds, paradoxes, and philosophical puzzles, and essays about literature

About this title

Review

If Jorge Luis Borges had been a computer scientist, he probably would have invented hypertext and the World Wide Web.

Instead, being a librarian and one of the world's most widely read people, he became the leading practitioner of a densely layered imaginistic writing style that has been imitated throughout this century, but has no peer (although Umberto Eco sometimes comes close, especially in Name of the Rose).

Borges's stories are redolent with an intelligence, wealth of invention, and a tight, almost mathematically formal style that challenge with mysteries and paradoxes revealed only slowly after several readings. Highly recommended to anyone who wants their imagination and intellect to be aswarm with philosophical plots, compelling conundrums, and a wealth of real and imagined literary references derived from an infinitely imaginary library.

About the Author

Borges was born in Buenos Aires in 1899. A poet, critic and short story writer, he received numerous awards for his work including the 1961 International Publisher's Prize (shared with Samuel Beckett). He died in 1986. He has a reasonable claim, with Kafka and Joyce, to be the most influential writer of the 20th Century.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 014018029X
• ISBN 13: 9780140180299
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288