As we approach the twentieth anniversary of his death, Borges’ dreamlike musings maintain their ferocity. At first glance Dreamtigers appears a miscellany; the snippets of reflection a fragmented mesh loosely held together by themes of the self and the imagination. However, upon closer reading it becomes clear that the disjointed nature is what enables the reader to use Dreamtigers as Borges did, as a beautifully reconstructed entirety a mechanism for powerful self-revelation. First published in Buenos Aires in 1960 under the title El Hacedor (meaning the maker), Borges has acknowledged Dreamtigers as his most personal work. Written at a time when he was going blind, the collection of poems, parables and short stories is founded upon the ethos that true reflection and vision supersedes physicality. Central to this notion is the belief that the imagination and its magical products are immortal, but the body is trapped within the confines of life and death. Borges traversed through the vast landscapes of the world and the mind, living a life of what he called “recogimiento” (an untranslatable word that expresses acceptance and living in perfect harmony with solitude and nurturing the self through the soul). The image of the solitary man is prevalent in Dreamtigers and visible from the offset. Just as Dreamtigers is a comment on the fact that physical sight is not a prerequisite for vision, it also implies that the life of the body does not contain the eternal life of the soul. The founding principles of Dreamtigers – namely that literature and other creative products have a timelessness that enables them to live through death – are encapsulated in Dialogue on a Dialogue, a parable in which friends named ‘A’ and ‘Z’ discuss their own deaths. That the two figures are known as the first and last letters of the alphabet is a reference to beginnings and endings, and implies that life, as symbolised by what lies between the two, is composed of words. Writing and thinking allows the characters (and the reader) to reclaim power from destructive forces, “the death of the body is entirely insignificant and [that] dying must perforce be the fact most null and void that can happen to a man.” The Spanish word for The Maker (El Hacedor) also means creator, and it is clear that Borges’ writing is not only unparalleled poetics, but also serves as an enlivening tool central to the creation of his identity. In The Maker, “the desperation of his flesh” is contrasted with the power of his ability to create: “A stubborn mist erased the outline of his hand, the night was no longer peopled by stars, the earth beneath his feet was unsure. Everything was growing distant and blurred.” The hand is a metaphor for construction that is hidden by the mist, which is a metaphor for the elements, for the inescapable forces of nature. This suggests that without the ability to create and explore the world and the self, reality itself becomes surreal and firm notions of truth become false. To combat these trials The Maker explores the imagination through dreaming and singing, which allows him to escape the inescapable – Dreams are used to retrieve a Tiger-like prowess. A powerful reflection of the non-linear nature of existence, the very structure of Dreamtigers abandons traditional literary constructs and uses creative freedom to embrace the personal. The lines of Dreamtigers transcend those of the page, enabling the reader to see the lines on their own faces in the mirror that is – like the fragility of human existence – cracked.