This book studies how Borges constructs a theory of translation that plays a fundamental role in the development of Argentine literature, and which, in turn, expands the potential for writers in Latin America to create new and innovative literatures through processes of re-reading, rewriting, and mis-translation. The book analyzes Borges's texts in both an Argentine and a transnational context, thus incorporating Borges's ideas into contemporary debates about translation and its relationship to language and aesthetics, Latin American culture and identity, tradition and originality, and center-periphery dichotomies. Furthermore, a central objective of this book is to show that the study of the importance of translation in Borges and of the importance of Borges for translation studies need not be separated. Furthermore, translation studies has much to gain by the inclusion of Latin American thinkers such as Borges, while literary studies has much to gain by in-depth considerations of the role of translation in Latin American literatures. Sergio Waisman is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at The George Washington University.

Jorge Luis Borges is generally acknowledged to be one of the twentieth century's most significant writers. Yet in all the critical debates on his work, the fact that he is Argentinian is rarely discussed, as if his international reputation had somehow cleansed him of nationality. In this brilliant introduction to his work, Sarlo challenges these "universalist" readings, arguing that they leave aside vital aspects of Borges' writing, including his powerful vision of Argentina's past and its traditions, which placed both the writer and his country at the intersection of European and Latin American culture.

Si Martin Heidegger y Gilles Deleuze conforman las cumbres de la filosofía en el siglo XX, Jorge Luis Borges destella como la máxima expresión de las letras hispanoamericanas y uno de los escritores magistrales de la literatura universal. No es sorprendente acaso que, a través de una secreta afinidad, estas figuras prominentes de la cultura occidental participen, de modo diferente, de un mismo horizonte problemático. En gran parte de la obra borgeana, tanto en los relatos como en los ensayos (e, incluso, en la poesía), que dialoga con la tradición de la metafísica, es posible hallar una inquietante conjunción con ciertos conceptos de esos filósofos. Los textos de Borges urdidos a partir de temas metafísicos, algunos de ellos célebres, muestran una notable proximidad con la configuración circular que Heidegger y Deleuze descubren en la filosofía desde Platón. La aventura borgeana, en este aspecto, se constituye como una “literatura conjetural” (como diría el mismo Borges) de los arcanos del pensamiento metafísico. El estudio de Rubén H. Ríos, en este libro revelador, muestra el plexo de esa circularidad en la obra del escritor argentino y reconstruye, a partir de “La esfera de Pascal”, los diferentes momentos y formulaciones que asume el tránsito de una metáfora decisiva en la historia de las metáforas del mundo.