| A Universal History Of Infamy |
Article Index for A |
Website Links For Universal |
Information AboutA Universal History Of Infamy |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT A UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF INFAMY | |
| 1935 books | |
| short story collections by jorge luis borges | |
''A Universal History of Infamy'', or '''''A Universal History of Iniquity''''', (original by Jorge Luis Borges , first published in 1935 , and revised by the author in 1954 . Most were published individually in the newspaper ''Critica'' between 1933 - 4 . The stories (except ''Hombre de la esquina rosada'') are fictionalised accounts of real criminals. The sources are listed at the end of the book. Two English translations exist, the first from 1972 and the second from 1999 (part of a collected edition, published as a separate book in 2004 ). The 1972 English edition (''A Universal History of Infamy'', ISBN 0-525-47546-X) was translated by Norman Thomas Di Giovanni . The 2004 English edition (''A Universal History of Iniquity'', ISBN 0-14-243789-1), translated by Andrew Hurley , was published by Penguin Classics , a division of British publisher Penguin Books . Borges was reluctant to authorise a translation. In his preface to the 1954 edition, Borges distanced himself somewhat from the book, which he gave as an example of the ''baroque'', "when art flaunts and squanders its resources"; he wrote that "they are the irresponsible sport of a shy sort of man who could not bring himself to write short stories, and so amused himself by changing and distorting (sometimes without aesthetic justification) the stories of other men" and that "under all the storm and lightning, there is nothing." Many arbitrary alterations are made in the retellings, particularly to dates and names, and they cannot be relied upon as historical; in particular, ''The Disinterested Killer'' diverges from its source material. CONTENTS SEE ALSO |
|
|