Borges, Between History and Eternity [Paperback]

That Borges is one of the key figures in 20th-century literature is beyond debate. The reasons behind this claim, however, are a matter of contention. In Latin America he is read as someone who reorganized the canon, questioned literary hierarchies, and redefined the role of marginal literatures. On the other hand, in the rest of the world, most readers (and dictionaries) tend to identify the adjective Borgesian with intricate metaphysical puzzles and labyrinthine speculations of universal reach, completely detached from particular traditions. One reading is context-saturated, while the other is context-deprived. Oddly enough, these institutional and transcendental approaches have not been pitched against each other in a critical way.Borges, between History and Eternitybrings these perspectives together by considering key aspects of Borges's work-the reciprocal determinations of politics, philosophy and literature; the simultaneously confining and emancipating nature of language; and the incipient program for a literature of the Americas.

Foreword
South, North, Beyond

I. POLITICAL THEOLOGY
Introduction
1. God and Country
2. When Fiction Lives in Fiction

II. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Introduction
1. Edgar Allan Poe (On Murder Considered as Metaphysics)
2. Walt Whitman, an American, a Kosmos

Afterword
El vaiv?n

Note on the Translations
Abbreviation of Borges's Titles
Works Cited
Acknowledgements

Hernan Diaz is Managing Editor of Revista Hisp?nica Moderna and Associate Director of the Hispanic Institute at Columbia University, USA. Formerly he has been a professor at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the State University of New York (Albany), USA.

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