Labyrinths

'The stories, essays and poems written by Jorge Luis Borges of Argentina suffice for us to call him great', as André Maurois writes in his preface, because of their wonderful intelligence, their wealth of invention and their tight, almost mathematical style.

The twenty-three stories in Labyrinths include Borges's classic 'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius', a new world where external objects are whatever each person wants; and 'Pierre Menard', the story of the man who rewrote parts of Don Quixote for the twentieth century in Cervantes's words.

The ten essays reflect the extraordinary scope of Borges's reading – the ancient literatures of Greece and China, the medieval philosophers, Pascal, Shakespeare, Valéry, Shaw and Wells – while the seven parables are unforgettable exercises in the art of astonishment.