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Qaphqa

Index: La loterĂ­a en Babilonia, Ficciones, OC,Obras completas. Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1974. 458.
Type
P

sacred letrine in Babylon in Borges story, obvious reference to Franz Kafka

Fishburn and Hughes: "Though the pseudo-Arabic transliteration of this word gives it a Middle Eastern ring, commensurate with its setting in Babylon, it is clearly an allusion to Franz Kafka (1883- 1924). Borges admired Kafka and openly acknowledged his influence on the story 'The Lottery of Babel'. In an essay entitled 'Kafka and his Precursors' he pays tribute to the Czech writer, saying that he influenced not only those who wrote after him but also those who came before him, by awakening in his readers an awareness of the obsessive quality of certain works of literature which pre-dated his own (TL 363)." (161)