First published 1949
An unrepentant Nazi examines his wartime actions from his current refuge. A Mayan priest sits in his cell, contemplating the gods his captors seek to destroy. In Buenos Aires, a man waits in a guest house, knowing his assassin approaches. A woman carefully plans her revenge against the person she believes killed her father. Christian theologians debate points of doctrine with fierce intensity. These characters inhabit worlds where philosophical questions become matters of life and death. Borges places readers directly inside each mind, revealing how people justify their choices and face their fates. The stories explore what drives human behavior when stripped of social pretenses. Accompanying these tales are brief reflections on literary imagination and personal identity. Borges wrote these pieces as his eyesight failed and fame complicated his sense of who he was becoming. Each character grapples with fundamental questions about guilt, faith, revenge, and meaning.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, 20th-century, academic
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Buenos Aires, Mayan
Period: Wartime
210 pages · Paperback · Penguin Classics