Jorge Luis Borges: “Reading has to be a happiness”

Jesse Nathan bio ↓  ·  February 1st, 2009  ·  filed under books

“For me death is a hope, the irrational certitude of being abolished, erased and forgotten,” says Borges in this 1984 interview conducted by Professor of Philosophy Tomas Abraham, translated here for the first time into English. “When I’m sad, I think,” Borges goes on, “what does it matter what happens to a twentieth-century South American writer, what do I have to do with all of this? You think it matters what happens to me now, if tomorrow I will have disappeared? I hope to be totally forgotten, I believe that this is death.” Forgotten? Not likely anytime soon, sir. The author on Conrad, free will, labyrinths, and his father’s lesson: “Reading has to be a happiness.” Read the interview here.

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Jesse Nathan is a writer living in San Francisco. He is the author of a chapbook of poems called Dinner. His work’s appeared in Adbusters, Tin House, The Believer, The San Francisco Chronicle, and elsewhere. He is an associate editor at McSweeney’s publishing and the managing editor of the Best American Nonrequired Reading. He is a contributing editor at the Rumpus. More from this author →

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