'There, in Russia five years ago, when Cuba had been taken out of the oven to cool and Vietnam was still coming to a simmer, Bech did find a quality of life — impoverished yet ceremonial, shabby yet ornate, sentimental, embattled, and avuncular-reminiscent of his neglected Jewish past'. Borges became famous as a writer of short stories that contained new realities: elaborately conceived, ingenious and gamesome precis of impossible worlds or imaginary books. In these five stories, there is danger on the high seas, an ungracious teacher of etiquette and an encyclopaedia of an unknown planet — and Borges' unique imagination and intellect plays throughout. This book includes Rich In Russia, Foreword, Bech in Rumania, Appendix A and Appendix B.
