The Garden of Forking Paths is the ninth title in Short Stops, a series from Conversation Tree Press dedicated to bringing exceptional shorter works of fiction to life through beautifully bound, letterpress-printed, limited editions that begin shipping immediately upon announcement. See the full announcement here.
Few have done more with the short story than Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. In pieces sometimes no more than a few pages long, he created labyrinths, infinite libraries, and entire imagined worlds. His stories remain among the most influential works of twentieth-century literature.
First published in 1941 as the title story of El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan and later collected in Ficciones, The Garden of Forking Paths is among Borges’s best-known works.
Set in England in 1916, during the First World War, it follows Yu Tsun, a Chinese spy working for Germany, who has a secret to deliver to Berlin and a pursuer close behind. Caring nothing for a “barbarous” Germany, he means to prove to a superior wary of his race that a man like him can strike a decisive blow for its armies. His flight leads him to a scholar’s house in the countryside, where he once more encounters a puzzle left behind by his own ancestor.
It is a detective story, by Borges’s own account, but also a meditation on time, not as a single line, but as an infinite number of possibilities, all unfolding at once.
Pablo Auladell’s artwork, rather than capturing specific scenes in sequence as our illustrations usually do, forms what he calls “a visual envelope for the story.” Glimpsed as though in a dream or through a mirror, his three drawings expand on this concept of non-linear time and serve as the perfect complement to Borges’s text.
Tony’s roots are in Guyana, so it’s a particular pleasure to publish a writer from closer to home.
The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges is a limited edition of 500 unnumbered copies, letterpress printed by Ascensius Press on mould-made watermarked Hahnemühle Biblio 150gsm paper. It features three pieces of artwork by Pablo Auladell and the book is quarter-bound in book cloth and custom hand-marbled papers by Jemma Lewis. The endpapers are GF Smith Colorplan with a linen finish.
All copies are signed by the artist.
