Title

Borges and the Basques: Notes on Reading an Invisible Literature

Keywords

Borges, Basques, Invisible Literature

Abstract

Critics and readers sometimes unnecessarily limit the scope of what is to be counted as “Basque literature” to texts originally composed in Euskera. In the present study I argue for a hermeneutics of Basque literature that does not seek to identify Basque literature by means of the language of composition, theme, or any particular biographical information about the author. Taking the work of Jorge Luis Borges as a touchstone—and , in particular, his canonical short story, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”—I sketch a strategy for reading Basque literature from a minimalist perspective that takes the identity of a Basque literary text to be a function of its capacity to read from a Basque perspective, broadly defined.

Original Publication Citation

Borges and the Basques: Notes on Reading an Invisible Literature.” ​BOGA: Basque Studies ConsortiumJournal​ 1.1 (2013): 1-11.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2013

Publisher

BOGA

Language

English

College

Humanities

Department

Philosophy

University Standing at Time of Publication

Associate Professor

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