Jorge Luis Borges and Gene Wolfe were two of the finest writers of the fantastic to ever walk the earth.

Borges is considered one of the great writers of the 20th Century. A native Argentine, he was born in Palermo. He would go to write many poems, short stories and essays. He would become director of the Argentine National Library. At this time he would go completely blind. As a public figure, he would speak out against Peron, Fascism, Communism, and anti-Semitism. His anti-Communism may have cost him a Nobel Prize for Literature. This may also be because he accepted an award from Pinochet. (For some reason, the Nobel Prize Board could forgive Pablo Neruda his support of Lenin and Stalin, but not Borges.) Either way this puts him in the company of Leo Tolstoy and J.R.R. Tolkien who were also snubbed. This is good company to be in. He also may be the only person ever nominated who has written a Lovecraft parody/pastiche (“There Are More Things.”)

Gene Wolfe in contrast is not as well known. While highly respected in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres he does not get the respect he deserves outside of it (and sometimes inside it.)

Wolfe was born in New York, grew up in Texas, would serve in the Korean War, and eventually move to Barrington, Illinois outside of Chicago. His Book of the New Sun was, along with Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, one of the two greatest works of fiction of the 1980s in my opinion. His work is heavily influenced by Borges.

The most obvious examples are from the Book of the New Sun. Namely, the blind librarian Ultan who appears in the series and the fact that the main character, Severian, has perfect recall like the title character in Borges’s “Funes, the Memorious.”

He also took elements from Borges’s The Book of Imaginary Beings. Written by Borges along with Margarita Guerrero, the book is an encyclopedia of creatures from myth and fantasy. It includes creatures from Greek and Chinese myth along with the creations of writers like Poe, Kafka, and C. S. Lewis. It also seems to include creatures that Borges invented himself. (There is also more than one version of the book with different entries. I read the illustrated version by Penguin.) Wolfe would take some of these imaginary beings and insert them in his own fiction

The first is the Fauna Behind the Mirrors. I believe this is one of the entries invented by Borges but I am not certain. Borges had an odd obsession with mirrors. The first Fauna is the Fish in the Mirror. This animal also appears in part of the Book of the New Sun. Borges ends the entry warning of the Tiger in the Mirror.

The most prominent creature taken from Borges work is the giant Baldanders. Originally, from German folklore, Baldanders appears as a major character in the Book of the New Sun. A giant who is continually growing, Baldanders is originally a companion and later enemy to the protagonist, Severian. Baldanders is accompanied by Dr. Talos, who is named after the mythic living metal statue from Greek mythology. The original Talos is also mentioned in the Borges’s book.

The names of both characters are not only allusions to Borges and mythology, but hints to the true nature of the characters. Wolfe is a tricky writer and often seemingly minor details in his work can change the meaning of the text. Almost nothing is arbitrary in a Wolfe story.

The final imaginary being that Wolfe would use is The Sow-in-Chains. The Sow-in-Chains is a ghostly pig that runs along the railroad track in Cordoba, Argentina. Borges references The Dictionary of Argentine Folklore by Felix Coluccio, which seems to be a real book, as the source of this story. Wolfe would use the Sow-in-Chains in his short story “The Eleventh City” in his collection Innocents Aboard. Wolfe links the ghostly pig with the pigs from Fifth Chapter of Mark in the Bible. In this Jesus encounters a man possessed by a legion of demons. Rather be than be exorcised by Jesus the demons ask to be allowed to possess a herd of pigs. Jesus agrees and the demons possess the pigs who then drown themselves in a river. In “The Eleventh City,” the Sow-in-Chains is the lone survivor of this haunted herd.

“The Eleventh City” is not as well known as The Book of the New Sun, but it is a decent story. Its viewpoint character is Sam Cooper, a folklorist that appears in three other Wolfe stories: “The Nebraskan and the Nereid,” “Lord of the Land” (a Cthulhu Mythos story), and “The Fat Magician.”

Another Wolfe story influenced by The Book of Imaginary Beings seems to be “Bea and Her Bird Brother.” It is a story of a woman who discovers that her father was from another world and she has a brother with wings. It may have been inspired by the Youwarkee, a creature from a 19th century novel entitled Peter Wilkins by Robert Paltock. It is listed as one of the creatures in Borges’ book.

As I said at the beginning of this essay both Borges and Wolfe were two of the finest writers of the fantastic. In some ways they were a lot alike and in other ways very different. Both wrote highly imaginative stories. Both worked themes of memory and theology in their works. The theology part is interesting. It is no surprise that Wolfe, a convert to Catholicism, was interested in theology, but Borges was an agnostic. (Though he may have found faith later in life. I’m not certain.) They were also both poets. One major difference is that Borges never wrote a novel, while Wolfe wrote many. They were however both masters of the short stories.

Borges gained international recognition in his lifetime. Though highly respected by other professionals in his field Wolfe is often ignored by those who don’t read genre fiction. This I believe is not just. I do believe though Wolfe will gain recognition as a major writer in the future. Both Borges and Wolfe deserve to be read and remembered.