Memoirist

Available

With Borges on an Ordinary Evening in Buenos Aires: A Memoir, Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Borges, într-o seară obişnuită, la Buenos Aires, Translated into Romanian by Mihnea Gafiţa, Bucureşti, România: Curtea Veche Publishing, 2002With Borges on an Ordinary Evening in Buenos Aires (A Memoir), Translated into Arabic by Dr. Abed Ishamael, Damacus, Syria: Al-Mada Publishing Company, 2002.

From Hawthorne's Gloom to a Whitewashed Island, Edited by Joyce Nakamura, Detroit/London: Contemporary Authors: Autobiography Series, Gale Research Inc., Volume 15, 1992.

Sunday Morning in Fascist Spain: A European Memoir (1948–1953), Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.

We Jews and Blacks: Memoir with Poems: With a Dialogue and Poems by Yusef Komunyakaa, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004

Willis Barnstone is living an amazing life. He numbers among his multitude of acquaintances, heads of state, future kings, authors, poets, artists and even Babe Ruth! His written works are prolific and among them he shares with readers several memoirs, experiences in his life and those of others, touching and relevant portraits of many great literary minds.

Among his memoirs, With Borges on an Ordinary Evening in Buenos Aires, presents the reader with anything but an ordinary evening. In a beautiful and moving tribute to his great mentor, Barnstone reflects on this Master of twentieth century poetry. MB

A blindman

Jorge Luis Borges

translation: Willis Barnstone

I do not know what face looks back at me

When I look at the mirrored face, nor know

What aged man conspires in the glow

Of the glass, silent, and with tired fury.

Slow in my shadow, with my hand I explore

My invisible features. A sparkling ray

Reaches me. Glimmers of your hair are gray

Or some still gold. I say I’ve lost no more

Than just the useless surfaces of things.

This consolation is of great import,

A comfort had by Milton. I resort

To letters and the rose--my wonderings.

I think if I could see my face I’d soon

Know who I am on this rare afternoon.

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Selected Bibliography