Julio Premat is a professor at the UniversitÉ Paris 8, a member of the Laboratoire d'Etudes Romanes, and a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France.Amanda Murphy is a translator living in Paris, France.

• Introduction: A Classic of ModernityPart I: A Plural I, a Single Gloom: FiguresChapter 1: The Works of the HeroInventing Buenos AiresFounding a WorkWriting in Other WaysFinding FiliationYouthful MistakesChapter 2: The Son at WorkAn Unexpected Encounter in the StairwayThe 1930s: The Black BoxWriting Don QuixoteA Position on CultureA Narcissistic UtopiaThe Years of ExpansionThe Prestige of MelancholyThe Pleasures of LossChapter 3: The Perspicacity of the BlindmanA New Learning ProcessA Fertile Old AgeThe Gifts of an AuthorBeing HomerThe Wise ManA Cyclical AgonyThe Immortal Dead ManPart II: A Pensive Inclination: MaterialsChapter 4: Driven by His Germanic Blood: Biography and the Meaning of StoryStatistics and DestinyInfamiesThe Forms of a LifeChapter 5: The Universe, Whodunit? Reading and the Detective StoryMeaning, This Elegant HopeImminent RevelationA Performative IncredulityChapter 6: The Library: Tradition, Betrayal, TransgressionNarrative SyntaxThe Argentine Writer and TraditionA Universal PeripheryChapter 7: Forms of EternityBifurcations of TimeLiterary History: Innovation and AnachronismLiterary History: Inventing One's PrecursorsSocial History: BarbarismSocial History: National HeroesThe Inevitable

This work does not incur the awkwardness of simply adapting a certain academic knowledge to a non-specialized public; it is a commendable work of writing through which a specialist manages to select, rank, and reorder his mastery of a subject in order to encourage entry into the work of the Argentine writer." - Francisco Aiello ReseÑas CeLeHis