Borges: "Most Important 20th Century Writer"?

[GirlyGirlMask]

Quote Originally Posted by Druidic

My favorite Borges stories are "Death and the Compass," "The South" and "The Immortal."

All fine stories. I'm a fan of "The Wait", "Emma Zunz", "The Zahir", and "Ragnarok". Truth be told, I cherish at least half of Borges' output.

[marioneta]

Borges deserved a Nobel prize for literature, but never received it, On the other hand, the Nobel is overrated and overhyped. I f the Nobel judges could give Bob Dylan the nod, what does that say about them, not Bob Dylan, who doesn't seem very enthusiastic about it.
Borges was an acolyte of Cthulhu. Maybe that is why he was never given the prize. It is cogent to go back and reread what Ligotti had to say about the Nobel.

[rhysaurus]

Best writers of the 20th Century?

Borges
Kafka
Calvino

Followed by Pessoa, Proust, Nabokov, Bulgakov, Lem, Marquez, Mutis, Narayan, Achebe, Queneau, Perec, etc, etc. But those first three are absolutely key authors, paradigm shifting, luminous, supreme.

[xylokopos]

It is difficult to compose a list of personal favorites from the total output of a favorite author, but in the case of Borges it is maddening and preposterous and...I shall apply myself nonetheless:

1. The Library of Babel
2. The Circular Ruins
3. Deutsches Requiem
4. The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero
5. Kafka and his Precursors
6. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
7. There Are More Things
8. Funes the Memorious
9. Pierre Menard
10. Borges and I

The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero is a perennial favorite of mine. I am also fond of Bertolucci's film adaptation of the story: The Spider's Stratagem. I have referenced it in both works of mine that have seen publication.

I find the snipet from Gibson's introduction to Labyrinths included in the BBC article very intriguing, so much so that now I think about buying that edition. I have the 1962 edition of Ficciones, which was introduced by Kerrigan plus the Dreamtigers from the University of Texas Press and I believe that those two combined contain all the Labyrinths stories, but I might be wrong. I also have numerous other editions misplaced somewhere along the trajectory of my life. In any case, a little gift, for those TLO members who cherish the work of the blind librarian:

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

I could swear there was a thread about best and worst translations but I cant find it. Here's another translation grievance.

https://www.borges.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/0518.pdf

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

This account from the preferred translator.

Norman Thomas di Giovanni | Jorge Luis Borges translations and conversations