Borges’ Labyrinth

The inaugural edition of 10Flash has now gone live, featuring my piece Borges’ Labyrinth. I first had the idea for this in early 2007, would you believe. I was casting around for something else to write as a radio play shortly after my unexpected phone conversation with Andrew Sachs (more about that here), and I came up with the concept of someone being trapped in a library with Borges’ ghost (or is it?). It did occur to me that any subsequent conversation with AS was going to be interesting, as it would of necessity involve dealing with the problem that his character would have a Spanish accent. ¿Qué?

In the event, it didn’t seem to want to be written then, so I put it to one side, until K.C. Ball’s invitation came out of the blue, and the concept seemed to fit the guidelines perfectly. This time I did manage to pull it together, although I do wonder now if it would work better as a longer piece, with a more extended philosophical discourse in the middle.

By the way, if anyone out there hasn’t read Labyrinths yet, why not? It’s probably my favourite short story collection bar none. And when you’ve finished that, you can move on to Stanislaw Lem’s A Perfect Vacuum – the greatest piece of Borgesiana not written by him.

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