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It's touching how the author grapples with her own struggles to write and make money, in parallel to Borges working away before he wrote anything great. I see in the footer it says she is working on her first novel, as of 2016, and based on her website it doesn't seem like it's written yet. I hope it emerges one day and it's brilliant. Good luck....
It seems the author lives in a culture or context and it is unaware of other cultures and contexts where you can follow a career without caring too much about money.
The NYer article mentioned: https://gwern.net/doc/borges/1971-borges-anautobiographicale... Even as a Borges fan, I found it quite informative.
I did not expect to read about Borges here. Great article!
Borges is one of the few literary authors that the HN readership "Really Likes" (hard to disagree). If you search the site you'll find a few more threads about him.
> If you search the site you'll find a few more threads about him.
I couldn't find the one about Locutus
I see this is your video. Could you offer some context?
As he admitted in an essay on the negation of time: “The world, unfortunately, is real, and I, unfortunately, am Borges.” He would have preferred to be a single word, rather than a man:
[After death,] I would prefer another destiny. I would like to leave no image of me. I would like my name to be forgotten, and to leave, perhaps, a few verses or a fable—a fable to be told by others and to become a part of tradition. I would prefer to be nameless and forgotten when I am dead. But if I could add a word to the Spanish language, or a fable to the memory of mankind—that should be sufficient reward for me.Borges was no saint.
For example, he appropriated the Spanish translation of a text from Kafka [1] by feminist & writer Margarita Nelken [2].
[1] https://www.wagenbach.de/kafka/titel/1212-kafkas-elektrische...
It is unfair to not cite sources that are contrary with your claim: https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/ALHI/article/download/4366...
People have been unaccountably good to me. I have no
enemies, and if certain persons have masqueraded as such,
they’ve been far too good-natured to have ever pained me.
Anytime I read something written against me, I not only
share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better
myself. Perhaps I should advise would-be enemies to send
me their grievances beforehand, with full assurance that
they will receive my every aid and support. I have even
secretly longed to write, under a pen name, a merciless
tirade against myself. Ah, the unvarnished truths I harbor!
- from the autobiographical essay Gwern cites elsewhere
> It is unfair to not cite sources that are contrary with your claim [...]
The paper from Fló is from 2013.
The book I quoted, which is excellently researched, is from 2019. I suggest to read it.
Of course it references & refutes the very research from Fló you cited [1].
Maybe you should have considered that possibilty and formulated your reply as a question before accusing me of omitting facts?
Sadly your reply does align with most reactions to anything that questions any of Borges work.
On a side note, Borges was a male celebrity. Nelken was a female nobody in comparison. Go figure.