On Writing

By: Jorge Luis Borges, Suzanne Jill Levine - editor, Suzanne Jill Levine - introduction

Narrated by: Diego Diment

A master class in the art of writing by one of its most distinguished and innovative practitioners

Delve into the labyrinth of Jorge Luis Borges’s thoughts on the theory and practice of literature, and learn from one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century not only what a writer does but also what a writer is. For the first time ever, here is a volume that brings together Borges’s wide-ranging reflections on writers, on the canon, on the craft of fiction and poetry, and on translation—an ars poetica of one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers.

Featuring many pieces appearing in English for the first time—including his groundbreaking early essay on magical realism, “Stories from Turkestan”—On Writing provides a map of both the changes and continuities in Borges’s aesthetic over the course of his life. It is an indispensable handbook for anyone hoping to master their own style or to witness Borges’s evolution as a writer.

An Infinitized Aesthetic

Borges touches eternity even while sorrowfully resurrecting some sense fragment from the faded past. His expression is the very temporal flag planted for the endless expanse all around everything. He zigs and zags between cold and hot, forever and never, then and now, man and God. He becomes an addiction.