The Lesson of the Master: On Borges and His Work

‘The Lesson of the Master’ – a memoir and essays – is an indispensable work for Borges readers of all kinds. Di Giovanni is the only translator to have had Borges to hand on a daily basis to contradict or authorize his work. He is not burdened with an over-reverence for his subject but is on the contrary playful, robust and witty. These translations of the stories that Borges generated himself, in collaboration with Norman Thomas di Giovanni, have been sidelined in the past as they were not included in the volumes of Borges’ work previously published in English. ‘The Lesson of the Master’ is an essential illumination of one of the great masters of twentieth-century literature.