Borges, Anthologizer of the Fantastic

Abstract Jorge Luis Borges was the great disseminator of the fantastic in the twentieth century. He wrote and cowrote several fantastic stories, but his most profound effect on the spread of fantastic literature emerged from his work as an anthologizer and editor. Borges co-created various anthologies of fantastic literature throughout his career, directed a literary magazine that published works of fantastic literature, and served as the literary voice behind two multivolume libraries or book series that included works of the fantastic. This chapter approaches Borges the anthologizer as a “rewriter” of the fantastic; examines the power of the anthologization process; details the difficulties of defining what Borges meant by the term “fantastic”; and explores the multiple and collaborative anthological projects that Borges propagated throughout his career to show how Borges challenged realist literary traditions and elevated the reputation of the fantastic literature that he and his colleagues specifically read for pleasure.