The cabala and Islamic theology, and a great deal of esoteric reading. Only Borges created literature out of that mixture, though one can guess at some of his diverse sources of inspiration: Edgar Allan Poe and Franz Kafka, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Miguel de Cervantes, with a liberal dusting of Omar Khayyam, Homeric tone, blood and vengeance, the blending of murder and metaphysics, and an interplay of appearances and apparitions in which reality and illusion are almost indistinguishable. It is not one of Borges' greatest stories, but many of the familiar elements of his work are here: arcane knowledge, characters that emerge from some combination of mythology and scholarship, images of labyrinths, a lightly satirical A king flees the ghost of his vizier, whom he has killed, taking refuge in a labyrinth he builds on the moors of Cornwall.īut the ghost, or what seems to be a ghost, catches up with him, and the king is murdered within his own hiding place. Luis Borges, is as good a place as any to start an appreciation of one of the most remarkable writers of our century. He story 'Ibn-Hakam al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth,' roughly in the middle of this marvelous new collection of stories by Jorge Featured Author: Jorge Luis Borges, with news and reviews from the archives of The New York Times.SeptemBOOKS OF THE TIMES 'Collected Fictions': Savoring a Borges Blend of Imaginings 'Collected Fictions': Savoring a Borges Blend of Imaginings

Collected fictions of jorge luis borges