“Deep inside the stacks at the University of Texas’s Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center lies a single box containing unpublished letters and handwritten essays by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.” So begins writer Eric Benson’s essay about excavating Borges’ ties to Texas.
Published over the weekend in culture mag Guernica, Benson’s piece “Gone But Not Forgotten” melds personal history with a reporter’s fact-finding, or, maybe more accurately, ghost-chasing.
“When Borges died on June 14, 1986, the University of Texas’s main campus lowered its flags to half-mast, a rare tribute for a writer and a perplexing honor for one without deep Texas roots. Why had Texas so embraced Borges? And why had Borges continued to return there throughout the final twenty-five years of his life?”
It’s a fascinating read, and you can read it all here.
This article appears in July 1 • 2011.
