Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges

richard burgin

Jorge Luis Borges, one of the indisputably great writers of the 20th century, was born in Buenos Aires in 1899. Never having been awarded the Nobel Prize, which his readers worldwide believed he deserved, this story writer, poet, essayist & man of letters died at age 86. This anthology of interviews with him features more than a dozen conversations that cover all phases of his life & work. Conducted between 1964-84, the interviews reveal him as a remarkably candid, humorous man, by turns skeptical & enthusiastic, & always a singularly incisive & adventurous thinker. He discusses his blindness, his family & childhood, early travels, literary friends & struggles to find his literary identity. In depth he examines the meanings & intentions of his own famous stories & poems, & he speaks of the writers whose works he has loved--Dante, Cervantes, Emerson, Dickinson, H.G. Wells, Kafka, Stevenson, Kipling, Whitman, Frost & Faulkner--& of those whom he disliked, such as Hemingway & Lorca. Borges expresses his contempt for Péron & assesses the tumultuous politics of Argentina. He speaks also of the imagination as a type of dreaming, about issues of collaboration & translation, about philosophy & about time. Many of the interviews were conducted by notable figures, including Alastair Reid, Willis Barnstone & Ronald Christ. As Borges speaks in these conversations, readers who have fallen under the spell of his magical prose & poetry will find additional sustenance.Richard Burgin's books include the story collections Feat of Blue Skies , Private Fame & Man without Memory . In his 1st book on Borges, Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges , he was the sole interviewer. Burgin is the editor of Boulevard magazine & an associate professor of communication & English at St Louis University.

Genres nonfictionbiography

159 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1,1969

This edition

Format: 159 pages, Hardcover
Published: February 1, 1973 by Souvenir Press
ISBN: 9780285647138
ASIN: 028564713X
Language: English

About the author

richard burgin

Richard Burgin's stories have won five Pushcart Prizes and been reprinted in numerous anthologies including The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction, The Best American Mystery Stories, and New Jersey Noir (edited by Joyce Carol Oates). He is the author is 16 books including two novels, “Rivers Last Longer” and “Ghost Quartet,” eight collections of short fiction, as well as the interview books “Conversations with Jorge Louis Borges” and “Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer.” His book The Identity Club: New and Selected Stories was listed as one of The Best Books of 2006 by The Times Literary Supplement and as one of the 40 Best Books of Fiction of the last decade by The Huffington Post. Other books have been listed as Notable Books of the Year by The St. Louis Post Dispatch and three times by The Philadelphia Inquirer. In France a Richard Burgin reader, L'Ecume Des Flammes was published in 2011, which received a rave review in Le Monde. He is the founder and current editor of the literary magazine Boulevard.