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1 results

  • Chapter 4 - Jorge Luis Borges and August Wilson

  • from Part I - Influences and Inspirations
  • Edited by Khalid Y. Long, Howard University, Washington DC, Isaiah Matthew Wooden, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
  • Book:
    August Wilson in Context
    Published online:
    09 June 2025
    Print publication:
    26 June 2025, pp 55-66

  • 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.