Book Club Guide

Ficciones

by Jorge Luis Borges · 1944 · Classics

Key themes

The library as everything — and nothing
The story that knows it is a story — and what this self-knowledge does
Time, infinity and the labyrinth that has no exit

About this book

Seventeen short stories — many barely five pages — that invented a new form: the intellectual labyrinth. Borges's stories are about libraries that contain every possible book, lotteries that determine all of reality, detectives investigating their own murders, and critics reviewing imaginary masterpieces. Every story is a philosophical puzzle with narrative clothes.

Published in 1944, Ficciones is Borges's most celebrated collection. He worked as a librarian for much of his life, an irony given his stories about libraries. He was never awarded the Nobel Prize, despite being repeatedly shortlisted.

Discussion questions

'The Garden of Forking Paths' presents a novel that is also a maze of time — every choice spawning a separate reality. What is Borges claiming about time, narrative and the multiplicity of possible worlds?
'The Library of Babel' describes an infinite library containing every possible book. What does this thought experiment reveal about meaning, information and the human need to find pattern in chaos?
Borges often writes as if reviewing real books or reporting factual events that are wholly invented. What does this false documentary mode achieve — and what does it say about the relationship between fiction and reality?
The stories are very short — most are barely five pages. What does Borges achieve in this compression — and what would be lost in longer form?
Ficciones is often credited with expanding what fiction could do. What specifically did Borges change — and can you trace his influence in writers you've read since?