Brodie's Report

At the age of seventy, after a gap of twenty years, Jorge Luis Borges returned to writing short stories. In Brodie's Report and In Praise of Darkness he returned also to the style of his earlier years with its brutal realism, its nightmares and its bloodshed. Of the stories in these two collections, many, such as 'Unworthy' and 'The Other Duel' are set in the macho Argentinian underworld, although even the rivalries between academics or artists, as in 'The Duel', are shot through with suppressed violence. Fascinated yet appalled by the rituals of conquest, betrayal and bloodthirsty revenge, Borges vividly exposes the deepest roots of human cruelty and political oppression. He also reveals an almost uncanny instinct as a story-teller.