1. Introduction
Translating Borges certainly presented some challenges, however I feel that I have been both
a faithful and tasteful translator of his story “The Book of Sand.” The fantastic thing about Borges’
writing is that he uses relatively straightforward words and syntax. Therefore, the difficulty of
translating Borges lies in unearthing the hidden meanings and philosophical implications. This
challenge is apparent in such sentences as “Acaso para dar a entender que los términos de una serie
infinita admiten cualquier número” and “Si el espacio es infinito estamos en cualquier punto del
espacio. Si el tiempo es infinito estamos en cualquier punto del tiempo.” I found that, in the case of
the first of these sentences, translators tended to communicate much more literally, that is to say
word for word. I, on the other hand, attempted to communicate the meaning of the text.
Therefore, in all 3 translations that I read the translators (namely Norman Thomas de Giovanni,
Andrew Hurley, and Borges himself) used roughly the same words: “Perhaps it’s to demonstrate that
an infinite series includes any number” (Borges). My version reads, “Perhaps it is to show that, in an
infinite series, there exist no boundaries.” I believe that my translation communicates the idea of the
infinite, a central and necessary theme of the story, much more clearly.
In addition to these more complex ideas, I feel that I have improved on a few specific words
in the story. For example, the word “amuleto” was translated as “amulet” (Borges, Hurley) and
“talisman” (di Giovanni). While “talisman” seems like a fairly faithful translation, “amulet” seems
completely inaccurate. I decided to use the phrase “good-luck charm” because it communicates
much more literally the manner in which the original owner of the Book of Sand utilized the book.
In addition, I made the simple correction of translating “corrigió” as “he added” as opposed to “he
corrected” which was made in every other translation. There were some words and phrases that I
had trouble with, such as the Spanish word “brotar” in reference to the infinite number of pages of
the book and the phrase “con el dedo pulgar casi pegado al índice.”

2. The largest difference in the 3 translations is the final sentence. The final clause of this
sentence reads “pero no quiero ni pasar por la calle México.” The main point of discrepancy is the
final two words. Calle México is where la Biblioteca Nacional de Argentina is located, or rather, was
located. A new main building was constructed after Borges’ death. Borges decided to translate it
basically word for word, Hurley changed it to “the street the library’s on”, and di Giovanni seemed
to ignore this problem altogether by not including the sentence. On account of the change of
location and the possibility that reader does not know this information, I decided to translate it as
“but I still have no desire to walk down the street which the library is on.” I hope that I have made
a very readable and slightly improved translation of this story. Enjoy!

3. The Book of Sand
by Jorge Luis Borges
…thy rope of sands…
George Herbert (1593-1623)
The line consists of an infinite number of points; the plane, of an infinite number of lines; the
volume, of an infinite number of planes; the hypervolume, of an infinite number of volumes…No,
decidedly, this more geometrico is not the best way to start my story. To affirm that a story is true is
now a convention of all fantasy stories; mine, however, is true.
I live alone on the fourth floor of an apartment on Belgrano Street. A few months ago,
around dusk, I heard a knock on the door. I opened it and a stranger entered. He was a tall man
with forgettable features, or maybe it was because of my short-sightedness that I saw him as such.
Everything about his appearance spoke of honest poverty. He was wearing grey and carried a grey
suitcase in his hand. I immediately sensed that he was a foreigner. At first I thought he was old, but
then I realized that I had been deceived by his thin blonde hair, which was almost white, like that of
a Scandinavian. In the course of our conversation, which must have lasted less than an hour, I
found out that he was from the Orkney Islands.
I showed him to a seat. The man took a while to begin speaking. He gave off a melancholic
air, just as I do now.
“I sell Bibles,” he told me.
I answered him with maybe too many details: “In this house there are a few English Bibles,
including the first, that of John Wycliffe. In addition, I have Cipriano de Valera’s, Luther’s – which

4. is literally the worst – and an exemplary Latin version from the Vulgate. As you see, I do not exactly
lack Bibles.”
After a brief silence, he responded, “I don’t only sell Bibles. I can show you a sacred book
that might interest you. I acquired it on the outskirts of Bikaner in India.”
He opened the suitcase and left it on the table. It was an octavo volume, bound in cloth. It
had without a doubt passed through many hands. I examined it. Its unusually heavy weight
surprised me. Holy Writ was written on the spine and below that Bombay.
“It’s from the 19th
century,” I observed.
“I don’t know. I’ve never known anything about it,” was his answer.
I opened it at random. The characters were very foreign to me. The pages, which to me
seemed worn-out and almost illegible, were printed on two columns just like the Bible. The text was
closely printed and organized in verses. In the upper corner of the pages there were Arabic
numerals. What struck me was that an even-numbered page such as 40,514 would be followed by
an odd-numbered page such as 999. I turned the page. The other side was numbered with eight
numerals. There was a tiny illustration, like the ones in the dictionaries, of an anchor drawn with a
pen, as if it had been drawn by the clumsy hands of a child.
It was then that the stranger said to me, “Give it a good look. You will never see it again.”
There was a threat in this statement, but not in his voice.
I took note of my place and closed the volume. I immediately opened it. I searched in vain
for the drawing of the anchor, page after page. In order to hide my confusion I said to him,
“This is a new version of the Scripture in some Hindustani language, right?”

5. “No,” he replied.
Then he lowered his voice, as if to tell me a secret.
“I acquired it in a prairie village in exchange for some rupees and a Bible. Its owner didn’t
know how to read. I imagine that he saw this Book of Books as a sort of good-luck charm. He was
from the lowest caste; people couldn’t step on his shadow without being contaminated. He told me
that his book was called The Book of Sand because the book, like sand, has neither beginning nor
end.”
He asked me to find the first page.
I put my left hand over the cover and opened it with my thumb practically glued to the
index. It was useless, there were still a few pages in between the cover and my thumb. It was as if
the book was sprouting pages.
“Now find the end.”
I failed once again. With a voice that did not seem to be my own, I barely stammered out a
response, “This can’t be.”
In a lowered voice the Bible seller said to me, “It can’t be, but it is. The number of pages in
this book is literally infinite. There is no first page, nor a last. I don’t know why they are numbered
in this arbitrary way. Perhaps it is to show that, in an infinite series, there exist no boundaries.”
Then, as if thinking out loud, he said, “If space is infinite, we are in some undefined point of
space. If time is infinite, we are in some undefined point of time.”
His ruminations irritated me. I asked him, “Are you religious?”

6. “Yes, I’m Presbyterian. My conscious is clear. I’m certain that I didn’t cheat the native
when I gave him the Word of God in exchange for his diabolic book.”
I assured him that he had no reason to reproach himself, and I asked him if he was just
traveling through this area. He replied that within a few days he was thinking of returning to his
homeland. That was when I learned that he was from the Orkney Islands. I told him that I really
liked Scotland because of my love for Stevenson and Hume.
“And Robbie Burns,” he added.
While we were talking I continued exploring the infinite book. With feigned indifference I
asked, “Do you propose to offer this curious specimen to the British Museum?”
“No, I’m offering it to you,” he replied, and he set a high price.
I responded, in total earnestness, that this amount was too high for me but I began to think.
After a few minutes I concocted my plan.
“Let’s make a deal,” I said. “You obtained this volume for some rupees and a copy of the
Holy Scripture; I offer you the entirety of my pension, which I have just finished earning, and
Wycliffe’s Bible in gothic letters. I inherited it from my parents.”
“A black letter Wycliffe!” he murmured.
I went to my room and brought him the money and the book. He leafed through the pages
and studied the cover with the fervor of a bibliophile.
“Deal,” he said.
I was astonished that he didn’t bargain. Only afterword would I understand that he had
entered my house with the goal of selling the book. He pocketed the money without counting it.

7. We talked about India and the Orkneys and the Norwegian jarls that governed those places.
It was night by the time the man left. I have not seen him since, nor do I know his name.
I thought of putting the Book of Sand in the space that the Wycliffe had left, but I opted to
hide it behind some incomplete volumes of the One Thousand and One Nights.
I went to bed but I didn’t sleep. At three or four in the morning I turned on the lights. I
looked for the impossible book, and leafed through the pages. On one of the pages I saw an etching
of a mask. In the corner there was a numeral, I don’t know which, raised to the ninth power.
I didn’t show my treasure to anyone. To my feeling of joy for possessing it was added the
fear that it would be robbed, and after that the suspicion that it was not truly infinite. These two
concerns only worsened my long-established misanthropy. I kept a few friends, but I stopped
seeing them. Prisoner of the Book, I almost never showed my face on the street. I examined the
worn-out spine and cover with a magnifying glass and rejected the possibility of any artifice. I
verified that the small illustrations were distanced two thousand pages from each other. I noted
them in an alphabetic notebook, which did not take me long to fill up. They never repeated. At
night, in the few intervals of sleep that I was granted, I dreamt of the book.
The summer was coming to an end and I understood how monstrous the book was. I felt
no relief when I realized how monstrous I, who had perceived it with my eyes and touched it with
my fingers, had become. I felt that it was a nightmarish object, an obscene thing that slandered and
distorted reality.
I thought of burning it, but I was scared that the combustion of an infinite book would be
equally as infinite and would suffocate the planet with smoke.

8. I remember reading that the best place to hide a leaf is in a forest. Before retiring I worked
in the National Library, which contained over nine-hundred thousand books; I know that on the
right hand side of the vestibule was a spiral staircase leading to the basement where they keep the
periodicals and maps. I took advantage of the carelessness of the employees in order to hide the
Book of Sand on one of those dank shelves. I tried to ignore both the height and the distance from
the door.
I feel a little relieved, but I still have no desire to walk down the street which the library is
on.