''Shakespeare's Memory'' (original Spanish title: ) is a short story collection published in

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

that collects the last stories by

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish ( masculine) or ( feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines ...

writer

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...

, which had been published in diverse mediums, such as the national newspapers ''

La Nación ''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal '' Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argentina. Its motto is: "''La Na ...

'' and '' Clarín''. It was published three years before the author's death. An English translation of the stories by

Andrew Hurley Andrew Hurley may refer to: * Andy Hurley (born 1980), drummer of the Chicago-based alternative rock band Fall Out Boy * Andrew Hurley (academic), English translator of Spanish literature * Andrew Michael Hurley Andrew Michael Hurley (born 1975) ...

was published in ''Collected Fictions''.

Content

The collection contains only four short stories, making it Borges' shortest collection. These are (original titles in italics): *"

August 25, 1983 August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, and the fifth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. Its zodiac sign is Leo and was originally named ''Sextilis'' in Latin because it was the 6th month in th ...

" ("''Veinticinco de agosto, 1983''") *"

Blue Tigers ''Shakespeare's Memory'' (original Spanish title: ) is a short story collection published in 1983 that collects the last stories by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, which had been published in diverse mediums, such as the national newspapers '' ...

" ("''Tigres azules''") *"

The Rose of Paracelsus William Leonard Pickard (born October 21, 1945) is one of two people convicted in the largest lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) manufacturing case in history. In 2000, while moving their LSD laboratory across Kansas, Pickard and Clyde Apperson wer ...

" ("''La rosa de Paracelso''") *" Shakespeare's Memory" ("''La memoria de Shakespeare''") "August 25, 1983", the first story of the collection, is about Borges encountering an older version of himself at the last minutes of his life (it is similar to Borges' previous story " The Other", from the collection ''

The Book of Sand "The Book of Sand" ( es, El libro de arena, links=no) is a 1975 short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges about the discovery of a book with infinite pages. It has parallels to the same author's 1949 story "The Zahir" (revised in 1974), ...

'', in which a younger and an older Borges also meet). In "

", the narrator gets hold of a group of mysterious blue stones whose number continuously multiplies and divides when one is not looking (retaking the themes of his previous stories "

The Zahir "The Zahir" (original Spanish title: "El Zahir") is a short story by the Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It is one of the stories in the book '' The Aleph and Other Stories'', first published in 1949, and revised by the author in 1 ...

", " The Disk", and "

": a direct confrontation with the inconceivable, in the form of an impossible object). "The Rose of Paracelsus" illustrates the old dispute between

faith Faith, derived from Latin ''fides'' and Old French ''feid'', is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or In the context of religion, one can define faith as "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". Religious people often ...

and incredulity. And finally, the titular story " Shakespeare's Memory" (Borges' last story) is about a man who is given the memory of

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

, enabling him to peer into the playwright's most secret thoughts, but also overloading him to the point of slowly forgetting his own life. Borges got the idea for this last story when, at eighty years of age, he dreamed that a faceless man offered him the memory of Shakespeare in a hotel room.

References

{{Jorge Luis Borges 1983 short story collections Fantasy short story collections Short story collections by Jorge Luis Borges