Making Borges. The Early Reception of Jorge Luis Borges's Work in France and the United States

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the role of individual mediators in the early reception of the works of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). It focuses on a number of key mediators such as publishers, editors, translators, and critics in the translation and publication process and in criticism of Borges’s work in France and the United States. These mediators evaluated Borges’s work according to their own norms, which become clear in specific selections and classifications in reception material such as correspondence, peritexts of book translations, and criticism. When comparing how different key mediators selected and classified Borges’s work, the functioning of the individual, institutional, national, and international levels in the reception and the processes of transmission that took place on and between these levels become clear. The reception of Borges’s work in France reveals a centralization of selections and classifications, on the one hand because Roger Caillois dominated the translation and publication process, and on the other hand because there was extensive interaction between Borges mediators in criticism. In the United States, conversely, the plurality of mediators at publishing houses and the lack of interaction in criticism caused a more heterogeneous reception.