Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T08:05:34.362Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 23 - Borges and Kafka

from Part II - The Western Canon, the East, Contexts of Reception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2020

By
Sarah Roger
Edited by
Robin Fiddian
Robin Fiddian
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Get access

Summary

Borges was partial to Kafka’s short stories, reading forty one of them in the versions edited by Max Brod. On Kafka, he put forth a view that was largely biographical and religious. Borges saw the Book of Job as about the enigma of the universe, and he read Kafka’s stories as modern-day versions of Job: stories about stoicism, suffering, and the inscrutable character of God and the universe. Borges authored (or co-authored) translations of eighteen of Kafka’s texts, and the influence of Kafka is clearly visible in key stories of the 1940s - cf. ’The Library of Babel’, ’The Lottery in Babylon’, and ’The Secret Miracle’, the latter of these being about the relationship between man and God..

Keywords

parental authoritysubordinationhierarchiesinfinitestoicismZenoparadoxparable
Type
Chapter
Information
Jorge Luis Borges in Context , pp. 188 - 194
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Borges and Kafka
  • Edited by Robin Fiddian, University of Oxford
  • Book: Jorge Luis Borges in Context
  • Online publication: 16 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108635981.025
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Borges and Kafka
  • Edited by Robin Fiddian, University of Oxford
  • Book: Jorge Luis Borges in Context
  • Online publication: 16 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108635981.025
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Borges and Kafka
  • Edited by Robin Fiddian, University of Oxford
  • Book: Jorge Luis Borges in Context
  • Online publication: 16 January 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108635981.025
Available formats
×