19 Eclectic Books for 119 Years of Borges

“The fact is that each writer creates his precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.” – Jorge Luis Borges, Kafka and His Precursors, 1951, in Selected Non-Fictions, page 365; 2000, translated by Eliot Weinberger

August 24 will mark the 119th anniversary of the birth of the Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. As with last year and in some previous years, I like to honor his life with a post that ideally captures his spirit in some way. This year I call attention to 19 books, all published long after his 1986 death; many containing new translations, added introductions by important writers, or new artwork:

The Aleph and Other Stories, Introduction by Andrew Hurley, 2004
The Book of Imaginary Beings (Classics Deluxe Edition), illustrated by Peter Sis, 2006
The Book of Sand and Shakespeare’s Memory, 2007
Borges at Eighty: Conversations, 2013
Brodie’s Report, 2005
Collected Fictions, 1999
Everything and Nothing (New Directions Pearls series), 2010
Ficciones (Everyman’s Library Contemporary Classics Series), Introduction by John Sturrock, 1993
Jorge Luis Borges: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations (The Last Interview Series), 2013
Labyrinths; With a new introduction by William Gibson, 2007
On Argentina, Introduction by Alfred MacAdam, 2010
On Writing, 2010
Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature, 2013
Selected Non-Fictions, 2000
Selected Poems, 2000
Seven Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges, 2010
Seven Nights (From lectures on Buddhism, The Kabbalah, blindness, and more; delivered in Buenos Aires in 1977), 2009
The Sonnets (Dual language edition with parallel texts), introduction by Stephen Kessler, 2010
This Craft of Verse (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures), 2002

These books have much to offer to both dedicated Borges followers, and new fans of his incomparable work. Let’s hope that one year from now, at 120 years since his birth, we will witness even more words and images to mark a new milestone in Borges studies.