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Chapter 4 - Jorge Luis Borges and August Wilson

from Part I - Influences and Inspirations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2025

Khalid Y. Long
Affiliation:
Howard University, Washington DC
Isaiah Matthew Wooden
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
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Summary

August Wilson famously and often stated that his influences primarily consisted of the “four B’s:” the blues, Romare Bearden, Amiri Baraka, and Jorge Luis Borges. While the blues, Bearden, and Baraka tend to get the most attention, Wilson’s debt to Borges remains abstract and elusive – something that made perfect sense in his mind, but is difficult for readers and theatergoers to bring into sharp focus. This chapter provides an overview of Wilson’s comments on Borges and offer two stories by Borges, “Shakespeare’s Memory” (1983) and “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quijote” (1941), as texts through which aspects of Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean (2003) might be understood.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading

Borges, Jorge Luis, Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley (New York: Viking Penguin, 1998).Google Scholar
Crouch, Stanley, “The Novel as Blues Suite,” in The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 101121.Google Scholar
Hartigan, Patti, August Wilson: A Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023).Google Scholar
Krebs, Edgardo, “The Purloined Borges: Translation and traduction,” Harper’s Magazine, April 2012), https://harpers.org/archive/2012/04/the-purloined-borges/.Google Scholar
Shannon, Sandra G., “Blues, History, and Dramaturgy: An Interview with August Wilson,” African American Review 27, no. 4 (Winter 1993): 539559.Google Scholar

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