Ficciones

Calvino's most Borgesian novel — a story about reading that forks into ten unfinished novels, each in a different style. The direct heir to 'The Garden of Forking Paths.'

A library-as-labyrinth murder mystery written by a semiotician who openly acknowledged Borges as his primary influence. The blind librarian Jorge of Burgos is a direct homage.

A novel disguised as a critical commentary on a poem — the same formal game Borges plays in 'Pierre Menard,' expanded to book length by an equally erudite émigré.

The novel that brought Latin American literature to the world stage — inconceivable without Borges' prior demolition of the boundary between the real and the fantastic.

Borges' most important precursor — Kafka's incomprehensible bureaucracies are the ancestors of Borges' labyrinths, and Borges wrote the definitive essay on Kafka's influence.

Cortazar's novel can be read in multiple orders — a direct application of Borges' forking-paths principle to the physical structure of a book.