Postcolonial Borges. Argument and Artistry by Robin Fiddian (review)

"Coloniality," in the words of Walter Mignolo, "points toward and intends to unveil an embedded logic that enforces control, domination, and exploitation" (The Idea of Latin America, 6–7). As a concept it describes colonial rule in Latin America while simultaneously alluding to the aftermath of the fall of these empires in the contemporary world. Alongside this central idea are the theories of (post-)Occidentalism, (post-)Orientalism, and (post-)Colonialism, all of which form the bedrock of (Latin American) postcolonial studies. Robbin Fiddian's Postcolonial Borges. Argument and Artistry couches its analysis in this rich theoretical tradition in an effort to examine how the work of Jorge Luis Borges maps onto the complexities of this field. To that end, Fiddian considers not only Borges's frequent engagement with ideas of identity, coloniality, and empire, but also his musings on geopolitical and cultural themes throughout his lifetime. Starting in the 1920s and moving chronologically up to the 1980s, Fiddian carefully demonstrates how virtually all forms of Borges's writing—poetry, fiction, and essay—contain a unique fusion of Argentine and non-Argentine referents that seamlessly elide his work with the postcolonial.

The introduction—coupled with the short opening preface—provides readers with an overview of the history of the field (Fanon [1961], Spivak [1988], Bhabha [1991], Mignolo [2000]), a review of significant Latin American theoretical contributions (Mignolo [1997, 2005, 2013], Quijano [2008], Coronil [1996, 2008], Zea [1988]), and the place of Borges within current postcolonial scholarship (Aizenberg [1997], Almond [2004, 2007], De Toro [1997], Fiddian [2007, 2013]). Fiddian analyzes each of these three categories—and divides them into sections—according to key terminologies of the field: "Coloniality, Occidentalism, and Post-Occidentalism," "Orientalism and Post-Orientalism," "Locus of Enunciation," and "Latin American Post-Colonialisms." In each of these sections, he explores the problematic nature of defining virtually all of these concepts and ultimately posits that, with regard to Latin America, it is best to approach the myriad angles and attributes of the field in the plural as postcolonialisms. He closes the chapter with an outline of the project as a whole.

Chapters 1 and 2 serve as a foundation for the entire book with an analysis of central postcolonial themes and linguistic nuances in Borges's [End Page e-4] writings from the 1920s and the 1930s. More specifically, Fiddian examines how Borges incorporates elements of history, geopolitics, national identity, and cultural hybridity into many of his early prose collections. He opens the chapter by reflecting on Borges's praise of the local criollo elements found throughout El tamaño de mi esperanza (1926), and then turns readers' attention to Evaristo Carriego (1930) where he explores Borges's fascination with the concepts of time and history. He concludes this first chapter by considering how certain essays in Discusión (1932) complicate our understanding of American or European influences on foundational figures such as Walt Whitman and Paul Groussac. In contrast to these thematic discussions, Chapter 2 addresses various linguistic concerns that relate to the postcolonial during this same early period in Borges's career. For starters, Fiddian addresses the uniqueness of Borges's three early volumes of poetry from the 1920s. As a counterpoint to these poetic compositions, he analyzes the linguistic complexities that lie at the heart of "Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote" and suggests that Groussac might have served as a potential influence for Borges's cross-cultural protagonist.

In Chapter 3, Fiddian turns to one of Borges's canonical short stories, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," and examines it through the lens of Mignolo's concept of coloniality by focusing on its geographical references, dates, encyclopedias, and languages. In a similar vein, Chapter 4 explores how Borges's family history serves as a point of reference for a number of his creative writings. More specifically, Fiddian explains the role of certain countries in Borges's writings—and even a series of significant historical dates—in order to reveal the Argentine writer's deep-seated interest in revealing...