This book brings together the work of several scholars to shed light on the Argentine author
Jorge Luis Borges' complex relationship with language and reality. A critical assumption
driving the work is that there is as Jaime Alazraki has put it 'a genuine effort to overcome
the narrowness that Western tradition has imposed as a master and measure of reality' in
Borges' writing. That narrowness is in large measure a consequence of the chronic influence of
positivist approaches to reality that rely on empirical evidence for any authentication of what
is 'real'. This study shows that in opposition to such restrictions Borges saw in fiction in
literature the most viable means of discussing reality in a pragmatic manner. Moreover by
scrutinising several of the author's works it establishes signposts for considering the truly
complicated relationship that Borges had with reality one that intimately associates the
'real' with human perception insight and language.
