Labyrinths

The groundbreaking trans-genre work of Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) has been insinuating itself into the structure, stance, and very breath of world literature for well over half a century. Writing that is multi-layered, self-referential, elusive, and allusive is now frequently labeled Borgesian. Umberto Eco's international bestseller, The Name of the Rose, is, on one level, an elaborate improvisation on Borges' ficciön "The Library of Babel," which American readers first encountered in the original 1962 New Directions publication of Labyrinths.

This revised edition of Labyrinths, a representative selection of Borges' writing edited by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby (in translations by themselves and others, with new corrections), includes the text of the original edition (as augmented in 1964) as well as Irby's original biographical and critical introduction (with a new Postscript) and a chronology of the author's life. Borges enthusiast William Gibson has contributed a new preface bringing Borges' influence and importance into the twenty-first century. --back cover