Second Annual

Jorge Luis Borges, literary genius of fiction, poetry, and criticism, is a mastermind at metaphysical games. In a tape-recorded interview with Robert Alifano in 1981 he makes known that he “discovered the labyrinth in a book published in France by Garnier that [his] father had in his library.... That labyrinth was... a symbol of being lost in life. [He believed] that all of us, at one time or another, have felt that we are lost, and... saw in the labyrinth the symbol of that condition ” (Charters, 1438). Borges extends his fascination for labyrinths and other puzzles to his works. He prides himself on manipulating or “losing ” his readers in his complex tales full of irony and psychological puzzles. “Emma Zunz ” is no exception. It is the story of a young woman avenging the wrongs done to her father which may have led to his suicide. In “Emma Zunz ” Borges toys with the ideas of justice and revenge, and of right and wrong. Many interpretations are offered for this work of genius; Borges may well be the only holder of the key to understanding it completely. There exists an interesting theory that in life we are what we experience: who we are