The Garden of Forking Paths

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.

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.