Amazon Delays Shipment of Bioy Casares's 'Borges' Memoir to April 2028
Key Takeaways
- •Amazon has postponed shipment of Adolfo Bioy Casares's memoir "Borges" from this fall until April 11, 2028, a delay flagged by the economics blog Marginal Revolution.
- •The memoir, drawn from diaries Bioy Casares kept across his friendship with Borges, exceeds 1,500 pages, was published posthumously in Spanish in 2006, and appeared in English in 2024 in Katherine Silver's NYRB Classics translation.
- •The diaries preserve decades of Borges's candid remarks on books, writers, and daily life in Buenos Aires, making them a frequently cited primary source for scholars of Borges and Argentine letters.
- •Bioy Casares, author of "The Invention of Morel" and a 1990 Cervantes Prize recipient, was a close friend and collaborator of Borges from 1932 until Borges's death in 1986, with the pair co-writing detective fiction as H. Bustos Domecq.
- •Distant future ship dates are common on retail listings for out-of-stock print books and act as provisional estimates, so readers can check the NYRB Classics site, other booksellers, or libraries for current copies.
The economics blog Marginal Revolution reports that an Amazon shipment has been postponed from this fall until April 11, 2028.
"Will it ever come?" the post asks.
The delayed shipment is the book the post describes as the "fantastic, and long" Bioy Casares volume Borges, his memoir of his friendship with Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), the Argentine writer whose stories, poems, and essays made him a central figure of twentieth-century literature. The Amazon listing is for a New York Review Books edition — the English translation by Katherine Silver, which NYRB Classics published in 2024. Compiled from diaries Bioy Casares kept across the decades of the friendship and published posthumously in Spanish in 2006, the memoir runs to well over 1,500 pages, making it one of the most extensive records of a major literary relationship. Its pages preserve decades of Borges's unguarded conversation — his running opinions on books, writers, and daily life in Buenos Aires — and the diaries have become a frequently cited primary source for scholars of Borges and Argentine letters.
Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–1999) was an Argentine novelist and short-story writer, best known for The Invention of Morel (1940), a landmark of fantastic literature. He met Borges in 1932, and the two remained close friends and collaborators until Borges's death in 1986, co-writing detective fiction under the pseudonym H. Bustos Domecq. Bioy Casares received the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious award in Spanish-language literature, in 1990.
Ship dates set far into the future are not unusual on retail listings for print books that are out of stock, where the displayed date serves as a provisional estimate that can move as availability changes. Readers unwilling to wait can check the NYRB Classics site, other booksellers, or libraries for current copies.
The Marginal Revolution post closes by asking of the rescheduled delivery date: "How can the reoptimization both be so distant and so exact in timing?"
