The most popular anthology of Jorge Luis Borges's short stories Fictions is a wildly original & influential collection of fantastic tales translated from the Spanish with an afterword by Andrew Hurley in Penguin Modern Classics Jorge Luis Borges's Fictions introduced an entirely new voice into world literature It is here that we find the astonishing accounts of ' Funes the Memorious' the man who can forget nothing; ' Pierre Menard Author of the Quixote' who recreates Miguel de Cervantes's epic word-for-word; a society run on the basis of an all-encompassing game of chance in ' The Lottery in Babylon'; the mysterious world of ' Tloen Uqbar Orbis Tertius' which seems to be supplanting our own ; & the ' Library of Babel' which contains every possible book in the whole universe Here too are the philosophical detective stories & the haunting tales of Irish revolutionaries gaucho knife fights & dreams within dreams which proved so influential (and yet impossible to imitate) This collection was eventually to bring Borges international fame; over fifty years later it remains endlessly intriguing Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was born in Buenos Aires Argentina A poet critic & short story writer he received numerous awards for his work including the 1961 International Publisher's Prize (shared with Samuel Beckett) He has a reasonable claim along with Kafka & Joyce to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century If you enjoyed Fictions you might like Italo Calvino's The Complete Cosmicomics also available in Penguin Modern Classics' Hurley's efforts at retranslating Borges are not anything but heroic His visions are clear elegant crystalline' Ilan Savans The Times Literary Supplement' One of the most memorable artists of our age' Mario Vargas Llosa