Jorge Louis Borges, Ficciones. Ediciones Dos Amigos,1987.

Dimensions: 13 1/4” x 10” x 2”.

Bound 2019.

Full maroon goat skin binding and cork doublures and fly leaves with sanded aluminum, sanded brass, laminated Mylar, goat leather onlays (some sanded), corrugated leather onlays, painted kangaroo leather, snake skin onlays, gold and painted tooling.

Ficciones is a series of nineteen short pieces by Jorge Louis Borges and is illustrated by five artists.

Though the pieces and their illustrations could be said to share some general qualities and characteristics, they are not the subject of the binding. Instead, it is the title itself Ficciones that plays the role of subject.

The design of the binding is very simple in concept. The title is rendered with the letters reading forward on the front cover and backward on the back cover, with the spine supporting the first letter “F” both forward and backward. The letters are fashioned differently from each other but have similarities from front cover to back. For example, the two “I”s on the front and back are made of aluminum and both sets share a dot. They are entirely different however in their shape, size and placement. The same can be said of all the letters to one degree or another, with the exception of the “S”s. They are exact mirror images of each other and form the base of the design on the bottom of the front and back boards. But even the Ss are not really Ss, but rather wavy red shapes of snake skin, slithering along on the ground.

The letters are abstracted or presented in a confusing arrangement. This is perhaps the most literal interpretation possible for the text of Ficciones. One review of the stories describes them as "labyrinthine." The binding is labyrinthine too. Once you know the way through it though, it all makes perfect sense. But the fun lies in figuring it all out the first time.