Dialogue and Existence in Jorge Luis Borges’s ‘The Secret Miracle’: A Buberian Reading

Abstract

This article offers a Buberian reading of Jorge Luis Borges’s story ‘The Secret Miracle’ (‘El milagro secreto’), a work that deals with the persecution of the Jews following Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Borges read and translated Buber in his youth, at a time in which he had become interested in Jewish mysticism and Jewish culture in general. By examining Borges’s tale in relation to key notions in Buber’s moral philosophy, this article seeks to produce an interpretation of ‘The Secret Miracle’ as a tribute to the Jewish people. Reference to other works dealing with Nazism is made in order to highlight the influence of Buber on Borges’s moral-philosophical thought.