Historia universal de la infamia (1935) was Jorge Luis Borges’s first adventure in the realm of narrative prose. He started as a poet (Fervor de Buenos Aires, 1923) and essayist (Inquisiciones, 1925). In the prologue to the 1954 edition he declared that the stories were “the irresponsible game of a shy young man who dared not write stories and so amused himself by falsifying and distorting the tales of others.” But his originality lies in his style. He is a master of irony and allusion; his phrasing is so precise that it often borders the understatement. Thus his versions of Lazarus Morell’s story (from Mark Twain’s Life in the Mississippi), or the life of Billy the Kid, or of Monk Eastman (“purveyor of iniquities”), are real creations and unmistakably Borgean.
The translation is impeccable. The prose of Borges reads in English as smooth and terse as in Spanish. In short, A Universal History of Infamy is a compact masterpiece in which the traits for what Borges is so widely applauded today are already present: his scepticism, his humor, his precision with words and his deep concern with human frailties.
