Jorge Luis Borges: Ficciones (Bcp Spanish Texts) [Paperback]

Jorge Luis Borges (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1853995908 | ISBN-13: 978-1853995903 | Publication Date: November 2, 2009 | Edition: 2nd

By common consent, the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges (18990-1986) is one of the greatest writers to have emerged from Latin America. His finest work is "Ficciones" (1944), a collection of brilliantly-crafted, essay-like short stories. This edition, updated from the original 1976 edition by the same authors, offers a comprehensive selection of stories from the work with a full introduction, detailed notes, a generous vocabulary, bibliography, as well as chronological and other tables.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Duckworth Publishers; 2nd edition (November 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853995908
• ISBN-13: 978-1853995903
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #109,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #14 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Foreign Language Fiction > Spanish

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fair Sample of Borge's Universe., August 31, 2005

By 

Maximiliano F Yofre "Maxi" (Buenos Aires, Argentina) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Jorge Luis Borges: Ficciones (Bcp Spanish Texts) (Paperback)

Jorge Luis Borges (1899 - 1986) was one of the greatest Argentinean's writers of all times. Since 1970 he was candidate to Nobel Literature Prize, which he never attained, but he well deserved. In 1980 he was bestowed Cervantes Prize, the Spanish major literary award. He influenced two generations of Latin American writers. Even those who despised him as "elitist writer" admired his powerful imagination and writing skills.

Jorge Luis was born in a high-class family. He was bilingual, due to his English grandmother. He moved with his parents to Europe where he resided from 1914 till 1921. When he returned to Argentina he fells in love with Buenos Aires. This love affaire begot several poetry volumes and inspired him many stories.
Borges was an omnivorous reader with a wide range of interests: from Cabbala thru Golems; from Mythology thru Gaucho's hardships; from Immortality thru Infinite; from Buddhism thru Christianity. His tales reflect this interest.

The present book contains a good 30 pages introduction in English and present Borge's texts in Spanish.
This volume encompasses two of the author earlier stories collections: "The Garden of Forking Paths" (1941) and "Fictions" (1944) and constitute a fair sample of his writings and style.
"La Loteria de Babilonia" describes an improbable world, ruled by fate embodied in a lottery game. "Funes el Memorioso" elaborates on what happens if a person may recall every instant of his whole life. "El Jardin de Senderos que se Bifurcan" is an elegant detective's story. "La Biblioteca de Babel", is one of Borge's best known texts, where he speculates on an infinite library containing every volume of human literature and gave way to mathematical conjecture.
In other tales the reader will get in touch with some themes very dear to Borges: mirrors, treason, solitary Hero, multiple divergent versions of the same character, whole universe created ex nihlo from his imagination and more much more.

This is a very good book for anyone interested in reading Jorge's work in his native language!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for non-native Spanish speakers, March 11, 2008

By 

Alex Head "Alex" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jorge Luis Borges: Ficciones (Bcp Spanish Texts) (Paperback)

This edition is a marvelous gift for second-language Spanish speakers. The stories are fascinating, fantastical and mind-bending -- the best detective story you've read with a healthy dose of magic realism. I got the book as a high-school graduation present, and it was a smooth transition up from the literature we'd been reading in class: the back of this edition has a Spanish-English glossary of the more challenging words, good for someone who's had a few years of the language but isn't quite at native fluency. The language of the stories themselves is captivating, and I've been savoring them for some years now. This book made Borges one of my favorite authors.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Typos Everywhere! Book should not be on the market. Zero stars., March 24, 2010

By 

M. Kerst (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Jorge Luis Borges: Ficciones (Bcp Spanish Texts) (Paperback)

This book containe 3-4 typos in each story! I have contacted the editors and publisher to the extent possible online, and have received either no response or the equivalent of "Eh, whatever . . . ." This edition is supposedly for English speakers who want to improve their Spanish -- but apparently no one involved actually knows Spanish, or can be troubled to proofread. The book should not be on the market at all.