Borges: Sources and Illumination

Critics and general readers have for decades been excited, intrigued, baffled and entertained by the work of the great Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. In his books and stories, ranging across the traditions of the East and West, something elusive was constantly noted as appearing and vanishing: providing a sense of direction, only to disappear, as if some guiding principle was nudging the reader towards a perennial area of self-discovery. Professor de Garayalde, intrigued by correspondences between references in Borges’ work and current projections of ancient thought, produced the first report linking the ‘Sage of the West’ with the thinkers of the Eastern tradition: about which Borges himself has said we must acquire what we can.