The Book of Sand

Borges (1899-1986) was known for his contributions to a variety of genres and literary styles. These include horror, fantasy, philosophical literature, postmodernism, and magical realism. (Rodríguez Monegal, Emir. “Jorge Luis Borges.” Britannica, 11 Jan. 2023). This literary style blends the fantastic and the real, presenting both elements as equally plausible and authentic. Although he had already been an influential short story author and poet in Latin America for decades, Borges became internationally recognized after becoming the co-winner (with Samuel Beckett) of the Formentor Prize in 1961. “The Book of Sand” and the collection in which it was published, which is also titled The Book of Sand, were written and published in the 1970s.

Borges began to lose his vision in his thirties and was blind by the mid-1950s. He frequently wrote about losing his vision, and the narrator of “The Book of Sand” comments on his own “myopia” in the story’s opening, noting that it may be the reason why the salesman’s “features” are “indistinct.” Questions of time, space, and literature in the story revolve around placement and sensory information, some of which Borges struggled to take in due to his blindness.