[The] shy and once ignored author of Ficciones is fast becoming an Argentinean national myth….

To those who are familiar with his writings, Borges's transformation into a public personality is of supreme irony. As he once noted, "My opinions have no importance. Only my works matter." This is not false modesty on the author's part. He considers the details of his life to be without interest. Like Henry James or Flaubert, Borges has defined his existence in terms of two activities: reading and writing. "Few things have happened to me and I have read a great many. Or rather, few things have happened to me more worth remembering than Schopenhauer's thoughts or the music of England's words." Literature is frequently the subject of his stories, and his main characters are often writers. But whether they are real authors like Shakespeare or imaginary ones such as Herbert Quain, Borges's...