Tuesday, November 13, 2012

A Short Story by Jorge Luis Borges: "Emma Zunz"



Jorge Luis Borges (1899, Buenos Aires -1986, Geneva) was an Argentine poet, essayist, translator and short-story writer whose works have become classics of 20th-century world literature. Two o his most famous books, Ficciones (1944) and The Aleph (1949), are compilations of short stories interconnected by common themes such as dreams, labyrinths, libraries, mirrors, animals, fictional writers, philosophy, religion and God. His works have contributed to philosophical literature and also to magical realism. 
Borges and María Kodama got married in a civil proceeding in Paraguay on April 26, 1986.
At 40 he suffered a severe head wound that finally made his blood poisoning: he developed septicemia, and for a month hovered between life and death. After this experience, Borges began playing with a new style of writing for which he would become famous.
Surprisingly he didn´t win the Nobel Prize. 

"Emma Zunz", published in 1949 in the book called The Aleph, is one of his best short stories. 

Saturday, November 3, 2012

My preferred epitaph

poeta Vicente Huidobro
Poet Vicente Huidobro. Source of the image


Which is your preferred epitaph? It´s not easy to say. There are some very funny, but if I should have to name one, only one, I think this by the great poet Vicente Huidobro, very fond on the sea, would be my selection. 


“Aquí yace el poeta Vicente Huidobro / Abrid la tumba / Al fondo de esta tumba se ve el mar”.
Vicente Huidobro

You can read other writers epitaphs in this post by María Carvajal: "Epitafios en las tumbas de escritores. Tumbas que hablan", published in NarrativaBreve.com. And don´t forget to tell us which is your preferred epitaph!


Sunday, October 28, 2012

Les Nouvelles en trois lignes de Felix Fénéon

Felix Fénéon. Critique d'art, journaliste et directeur de revues françaises. Grand "twitteur" bien avant l'heure. Turín, 1861 - Châtenay-Malabry, 1944. Source d´image: Impedimenta


Les Nouvelles en trois lignes sont une rubrique publiée dans le journal Le Matin à partir de 1905. Cette rubrique est restée célèbre pour avoir bénéficié de la collaboration de Felix Fénéon entre mai et novembre 1906. Les Nouvelles en trois lignes de Fénéon ont depuis fait l'objet de plusieurs publications indépendantes en volumes.