Chapter 24 - Borges and Argentine Literature: A Detour around the World

Summary

Borges is an Argentine writer whose work has deserved extensive and brilliant critical analyses. Reviewing the canonical interpretations (Ricardo Piglia, Sylvia Molloy, Daniel Balderston, Beatriz Sarlo, among others), this chapter seeks to rethink Borges’ work in the twenty-first century usiing two main approaches. The first will review the idea of “work” in Borges. As Annick Louis has studied, the unstable nature of his work demands a reconceptualization of the processes of construction of literature that expands the limits of the book, the author, and the text, and that circulates in different media (books, magazines, lectures, interviews, chats). A second way is to expand the dialogues and conversations that his textuality offers. Focused on the obvious literary bonds, most of his critics have read his work emphasizing the different forms of intertextuality. But Borges’ universe includes much more aesthetics and cultural practices, as Alan Pauls has shown. If Borges strongly questioned the ideas of the author and work, he also questioned the ideas of literature, art, culture, and media. The chapter also analyzes the place of Borges in the context of national culture and its relationship with world literature.