0
*
0
*
1450
2025
book-filter
Edition cover

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

  • Jorge Luis Borges

4.00

1 ratings

"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is a short story by the 20th-century Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in the Argentinian journal Sur, May 1940. The "postscript" dated 1947 is intended to be anachronistic, set seven years in the future. The first English-language translation of the story was published in 1961.

Told in a first-person narrative, the story focuses on the author's discovery of the mysterious and possibly fictional country of Uqbar and its legend of Tlön, a mythical world whose inhabitants believe a form of subjective idealism, denying the reality of objects and nouns. Relatively long for Borges (approximately 5,600 words), the story is a work of speculative fiction.

The story alludes to many leading intellectual figures both in Argentina and in the world at large, and takes up a number of themes more typical of a novel of ideas. Most of the ideas engaged are in the areas of metaphysics, language, epistemology, and literary criticism.


Contained in: 70 años de narrativa argentina Antología de la literatura fantástica Borges Esencial Ficciones His Obras completas: Historia universal de la infamia El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan Labyrinths Obras Completas 1: 1923-1949 Widow-Ching Pirate Zwei Labyrinthe Lesebuch

Genres

  • Anachronisms
  • speculative fiction
  • subjective idealism
  • duodecimals
  • aneurysms
  • adjectives
  • hermeticism
  • philanthropy
  • cabala
  • persecution
Already read

2

people already read

Currently reading

0

people are currently reading

Want to read

6

people want to read

About the author

  • Jorge Luis Borges

    24 Aug 1899 - 14 Jun 1986

    4.15

    258 ratings · 808 works

Editions

  • Edition cover

    Porcupine's Quill

    October 1, 1982

  • Edition cover

    Porcupine's Quill

    1983