Episode 2: Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

In this episode, we venture into the labyrinth of Jorge Luis Borges's collection of short stories, Ficciones. We explore his use of the short story, as a genre, while following apparently endless allusions across this philosophically rich and deceptively simple collection. The globally acclaimed novelist and translator Alberto Manguel provides writerly insights on Borges, in the form of an extended reflection. He explains that Borges-the-writer was always first and foremost Borges-the-reader, and how this is crucial to his writing craft. We also hear from Cristóbal Pérez Barra, who is a novelist, translator, and doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford. He highlights the power of Borges's literary legacy, by describing his impact on successive writers from South America, and far beyond.

The audio clip of Jorge Luis Borges is excerpted from a recording of one of his Norton Lectures, "A Poet's Creed", delivered at Harvard University on 10 April 1968 (https://library.harvard.edu/poetry/listeningbooth/poets/borges.html).

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