"An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" | |
---|---|
by Jorge Luis Borges | |
Original title | Examen de la obra de Herbert Quain |
Translator | Anthony Bonner |
Country | Argentina |
Language | Spanish |
Genre(s) | Metafictional short story |
Published in | Sur |
Media type | |
Publication date | April 1941 |
Published in English | 1962 |
"An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" (original Spanish title: "Examen de la obra de Herbert Quain") is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. It was included in the anthology Ficciones , part one (The Garden of Forking Paths). The title has also been translated as A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain.
"An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" is a fictional essay surveying the following works, written by fictional deceased Irish author Herbert Quain:
The review of fictional books is a favorite device of Borges (see, for instance, his "pseudo-essay" "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" in Ficciones ).
The fictional essayist's vanity, affectation, and hypocrisy "gives the story a satirical coloration" and, along with the reactions of the misunderstanding and unappreciative public, serve to, by contrast, emphasize Quain's "uncompromising purity." [1]
In his 1984 novel The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (Original Portuguese title O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis), José Saramago's protagonist, Ricardo Reis, spends much time considering the work The God of the Labyrinth by Herbert Quain. [2]
The fictional anthologist who curates Ana Menendez's Adios, Happy Homeland! (2011) is named Herberto Quain. He describes himself as coming from Roscommon in Ireland, and moving to Havana later in life, at which time he added the "o" to the end of his name.
Colin Wilson published a novel titled The God of the Labyrinth (1970) in reference to Borges.
In Karim Alwari's Book of Sands (2015) Tarek's pregnant wife reads April March by Herbert Quain.
Portuguese musician Manuel Bogalheiro chose his stage name (Mr. Herbert Quain) because he liked the way the name sounded. [3]
The fictional book The Heart of Agent 9 or The Heart of Observer 9 by Herbert Quain is featured prominently in the Space Battleship Yamato 2199 episode Clockwork Prisoner.
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known books, Ficciones (Fictions) and El Aleph, published in the 1940s, are collections of short stories exploring themes of dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, mirrors, fictional writers and mythology. Borges' works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and majorly influenced the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE ComSE GColCa, was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony [with which he] continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality." His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the theopoetic human factor. In 2003 Harold Bloom described Saramago as "the most gifted novelist alive in the world today" and in 2010 said he considers Saramago to be "a permanent part of the Western canon", while James Wood praises "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant."
"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is a short story by the 20th-century Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in the Argentinian journal Sur, May 1940. The "postscript" dated 1947 is intended to be anachronistic, set seven years in the future. The first English-language translation of the story was published in 1961.
"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
A fictional book is a text created specifically for a work in an imaginary narrative that is referred to, depicted, or excerpted in a story, book, film, or other fictional work, and which exists only in one or more fictional works. A fictional book may be created to add realism or depth to a larger fictional work. For example, George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four has excerpts from a book by Emmanuel Goldstein entitled The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism which provides background on concepts explored in the novel.
"The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" is a fantasy short story written in 1935 by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. In his autobiographical essay, Borges wrote about "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim", "it now seems to me to foreshadow and even to set the pattern for those tales that were somehow awaiting me, and upon which my reputation as a storyteller was to be based."
Ficciones is a collection of short stories by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges, originally written and published in Spanish between 1941 and 1956. Thirteen stories from Ficciones were first published by New Directions in the English-language anthology Labyrinths (1962). In the same year, Grove Press published the entirety of the book in English using the same title as in the original language. "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" originally appeared published in A History of Eternity (1936). Ficciones became Borges's most famous book and made him known worldwide.
Labyrinths is a collection of short stories and essays by the writer Jorge Luis Borges. It was translated into English, published soon after Borges won the International Publishers' Prize with Samuel Beckett.
The Aleph and Other Stories is a book of short stories by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The title work, "The Aleph", describes a point in space that contains all other spaces at once. The work also presents the idea of infinite time. Borges writes in the original afterword, dated May 3, 1949, that most of the stories belong to the genre of fantasy, mentioning themes such as identity and immortality. Borges added four new stories to the collection in the 1952 edition, for which he provided a brief postscript to the afterword. The story "La intrusa" was first printed in the third edition of El Aleph (1966) and was later included in the collection El informe de Brodie (1970).
Giovanni Pontiero was a Scots-Italian scholar and translator of Portuguese fiction. Most notably, he translated the works of José Saramago and Clarice Lispector, two celebrated names in Portuguese-language literature.
This is a bibliography of works by Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet, and translator Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986).
"The House of Asterion" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in 1947 in the literary magazine Los Anales de Buenos Aires and republished in Borges's short story collection The Aleph in 1949. It is based on the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur and is told from the perspective of Asterion, the Minotaur.
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis is a 1984 novel by the Portuguese novelist José Saramago, the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature. The book chronicles the final year in the life of the title character, Ricardo Reis, one of the many heteronyms used by the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa.
"The Form of the Sword" is a short story by Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges, first published in July 1942 in La Nación, and included in the 1944 collection Ficciones, part two (Artifices). The first English translation appeared in New World Writing No. 4, in 1953. In the story, an Irishman, now living near Tacuarembó in Uruguay, recounts his experiences in the Irish War of Independence and how he received the large scar on his face.
"The Circular Ruins" is a short story by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. First published in the literary journal Sur in December 1940, it was included in the 1941 collection The Garden of Forking Paths and the 1944 collection Ficciones. It was first published in English in View, translated by Paul Bowles.
"The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths" (original Spanish title: "Una Leyenda Arábiga is a short story by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, first published in June 1939. It was later included in El Aleph under the title "Los dos reyes y los dos laberintos". It deals with a number of Borgesian themes: labyrinths, supposed obscure folk tales, Arabia, and Islam.
"The End" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, first published in La Nación in 1953. It was included in the 1956 edition of Ficciones, part two (Artifices).
Nazi Literature in the Americas is a work of fiction by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. It was published in 1996. Chris Andrews’ English translation was published in 2008 by New Directions and was shortlisted for the 2008 Best Translated Book Award.
The Book of Sand is a 1975 short story collection by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. In the author's opinion, the collection, written in his last days — and while blind — is his best book. This opinion is not shared by most critics, many of whom prefer his other works such as those in Ficciones (1944).
Quain is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: