Camden, 1892 | Robert Mezey | The New York Review of Books

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The smell of coffee and of newspapers.
Sunday and Sunday’s tedium. Morning light,
And on the glanced-at page, frivolous and slight,
The unveiling of some allegorical verse
By a successful colleague. The old man
Lies ashen and exhausted in his decorous,
Shabby bed-sitting room. Idly he looks
At his face in the worn mirror once again
And thinks, now without wonder, that that face
Is him. A hand absently touches both
The frowzy beard and devastated mouth.
The end is near. He says, in a soft voice:
I am almost not, but in my verses’ rhythm
Life moves in its majesty. I was Walt Whitman.
(1964)

Robert Mezey

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), a giant in Latin American letters, wrote numerous books of poetry, fiction, and essays, and was a prodigious translator of authors such as Kipling, Woolf, Faulkner, and Poe. He was a regular contributor to Victoria Ocampo’s journal Sur, and a frequent dinner guest of Silvina Ocampo and Bioy Casares. Over one of their legendary conversations, the three friends came upon the idea of editing the Antología de la Literatura Fantástica, which was published in 1940.

This Issue

May 28, 1992