The Penguin Classics Borges Series

One of my favorite parts of this job (aside from seeing our own books in print and on bookstore shelves) is opening the mail and seeing all the new books coming out. Especially when I receive things like the first two volumes of the new Borges series that Penguin Classics is bringing out next April.

These first two volumes—Poems of the Night and The Sonnets, pictured above and below—are coming out just in time for National Poetry Month, and by themselves are pretty amazing collections. Quoting from the jacket copy, Poems of the Night is “a moving collection of the great literary visionary’s poetic meditations on nighttime, darkness, and the crepuscular world of visions and dreams, themes that speak implicitly to the blindness that overtook him late in life.”

And The Sonnets contains, well, all of Borges’s sonnets, many of which are appearing in English for the first time.

Beyond the contents though, check this list of translators included in these volumes: Willis Barnstone, Robert Fitzgerald, Edith Grossman, Kenneth Krabbenhoft, Anthony Kerrigan, Stephen Kessler, John King, Suzanne Jill Levine (who is also the series editor, more below), Eric McHenry, Christopher Maurer, W. S. Merwin, Alastair Reid, Hoyt Rogers, Mark Strand, Charles Tomlinson, Alan S. Trueblood, and John Updike.

Now, about the series: I’d heard about this from John Siciliano and Jill Levine back some time ago, and thanks to the wonderful people at Penguin, I just got some additional info about all five volumes. These are based on the Collected Fiction, Selected Poetry, and Selected Nonfiction volumes that came out a few years ago, but each new volume includes new material as well. Kristen Scharold sent me this info about the next three volumes, which will come out in June of next year:

On Writing constitutes a guide to writing by one of the twentieth century’s most revered writers and literary thinkers. On Argentina constitutes a guide to Borges’s beloved Argentina and Buenos Aires—perfect for the literary traveler. On Mysticism, which is edited and introduced by Borges’s widow, Maria Kodama, is a collection of Borges’ essays, fiction, and poetry that explores the role of the mysterious and spiritual in Borges’ life and writing.

It’s always a good time to read Borges, and I have a feeling I’ll end up reading all five of these volumes over the next year . . . And speaking of Suzanne Jill Levine, here’s an interesting interview with her that recently appeared in Words Without Borders.