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Language of Labyrinth
A young aspiring writer, I discovered the work of Borges at about the same time that I began to read Beckett. Neither of these writers indicated directions I believed… More
1,001 Laughs
1,001 LaughsBack in the thirties, Borges worked for an Argentinean womens’ magazine called El Hogar—a magazine of middle-class attitudes and presumptions, roughly similar to Redbook in America today. I… More
Time After Time
In his 1978 lecture “Immortality,” Jorge Luis Borges makes the typically astute observation that “Immortality is in the memory of others and in the work we leave behind.” He… More
Borges Beyond Words
Borges used to tell an endearing story that continues to haunt me. When he was a child, his paternal grandmother lived in the house with his family. She was English;… More
All the Range
Borges was an immensely prolific writer who never wrote anything long, and what he mainly wrote, besides his thousand pages of short stories and around five hundred poems, was… More
Nothing Simple
After his death, when I visited Buenos Aries with my wife, Paula Cooper, it was remarkable to stay in a hotel next door to a building that Borges once… More
Rosario Ferré: Reaching the Center
"Reaching the Center" was featured in PEN America 1: Classics, and was presented at a centenary celebration of Jorge Luis Borges, sponsored by the PEN Forums Committee and the New… More
Virginia Woolf’s Forgetful Selves
Readers either worship or denigrate Virginia Woolf’s use of stream of consciousness. I will admit that there are times when her characters’ mental ambling can seem frustratingly opaque, and… More
Invigorating Life
A Room of One’s Own must be the most popular book title that any author has ever written. Since its publication in 1929, Virginia Woolf’s witty manifesto has not… More
The Imaginary Real
Pieces ranging from the metaphysical to the fanciful to the concrete to the comical are all realistic, in that they show us more about what it is to be… More
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