Professor Borges: A Course On English Literature (New Directions Books)

Product Description

Now in paperback Borges’s erudite and entertaining lectures on English literature from Beowulf to Oscar Wilde. Borges takes us on a startling, idiosyncratic, fresh, and highly opinionated tour of English literature, weaving together countless cultural traditions of the last three thousand years. Borges’s lectures ― delivered extempore by a man of extraordinary erudition ― bring the canon to remarkably vivid life.Now translated into English for the first time, these lectures are accompanied by extensive and informative notes by the Borges scholars Martín Arias and Martín Hadis.

Writing for
Harper’s magazine, Edgardo Krebs describes
Professor Borges: “A compilation of the twenty-five lectures Borges gave in 1966 at the University of Buenos Aires, where he taught English literature. Starting with the Vikings’ kennings and Beowulf and ending with Stevenson and Oscar Wilde, the book traverses a landscape of ‘precursors,’ cross-cultural borrowings, and genres of expression, all connected by Borges into a vast interpretive web. This is the most surprising and useful of Borges’s works to have appeared posthumously.”

About the Author

Jorge Luis Borges (1890-1982), Argentine poet, critic, and short-story writer, revolutionized modern literature. He was completely blind when appointed the head of Argentina’s National Library.

Katherine Silver’s award-winning translations include works by María Sonia Cristoff, Daniel Sada, César Aira, Julio Cortázar, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Julio Ramón Ribeyro. The author of
Echo Under Story, she does volunteer interpreting for asylum seekers.

Martín Arias is a writer, journalist, and senior researcher at the National Library’s Center for Research in Argentina.

Martín Hadis is a professor, writer, and researcher.