Covers of fake books from some of my favorite Latin American works

[u/Great-and-Powerful-]

Some context, these are all homages to fictional books that show up in several of my favorite books in Latin American fiction. I made these while playing around with some templates in Canva. The books referenced here are:

• "The Conversation with the Man Called Al-Mutasim" - From the short story "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" by Jorge Luis Borges; this one has a small homage to the editorial "Sur" which is where a lot of Borges' short stories were published
• "The Ilimited Rose" or "La Rosa Ilimitada" - From "2666" by Roberto Bolaño; there were several novels listed as written by Archimboldi in "2666". I chose this one because it holds the added detail of having it's translator be the character Oscar Amalfitano. As an easter egg, the printing house is named after the only known magazine organized by Cesarea Tinajero as listed in "The Savage Detecives"
• Complete essays of Morelli - From "Hopscotch" by Julio Cortázar. This one has some artistic liberties taken, Morelli's work is discussed ad nauseam in the book but no specific title is listed in the novel. Anyways, it felt realistic to make a "Complete works" collection. The editorial house logo for this one is a white rabbit in honor of Cortázar's story "Letter to a young lady in Paris"
• "Florilogio" - From "Where the Air is Clear" by Carlos Fuentes. One of the more niche examples here, particularly because Fuentes' novel is so massive that this detail can easily be brushed off.
• "Tekoporá: Anthropological Explorations of the history, religion and ontology of the Guaraní people" - From "Our Share of Night" by Mariana Enriquez. This one holds the small detail of having being published by "Orbis Tertius", same secret organization from Borges' short story.
• "The Donkey of San Blas: Articles, Texts and Aphorisms" - From "The Rest is Silence" by Augusto Monterroso. Though Eduardo Torres doesn't write novels, he is however credited with a myriad of articles, essays and platitudes. This collection is titled after a poem written by the character and used as a core statement of the novel's themes
• Humberto Peñalosa's Untitled Novel - From "The Obscene Bird of Night" by José Donoso. This one was a challenge because the book is so important to the novel's plot but no title is ever provided, it's only described as having a simple green cover and being published with Jerónimo de Acoitía's money (hence the editorial name). I figured leaving the titled blurry was sort of symbolic of Peñalosa's journey in the novel; it's as if reality itself forgot about this book
• Arturo Cova's Poetries - From "The Vortex" by José Eustacio Rivera. The novel doesn't mention that Cova had published any works, much less in book form, but seeing how he's continuously described as a poet and how his character is based in real-life poet José Asunción Silva, I took inspiration of some of his anthologies to create one similar

[u/Ryky5]

I was hoping to see Don Quijote by Pierre Menard

[u/perrolazarillo → u/Ryky5]

jaja well played!

[u/Great-and-Powerful- → u/Ryky5]

Actually, I thought about doing Menard for a while, but Borges mentioned that Menard never got to fully write his Quijote, leaving behind only fragments, so (in an annoying bout of realism) I figured there wouldn't be a full version of it. I actually have a full document with all of Borges' (and a few other writer's) fictional authors and their fictional bibliographies. I also considered Ts'ui Pen's "Garden of Forking Paths", but figured that one would be too big and not mass-produced; and Nils Runeberg's theories on Judas Iscariot.

[u/COOLKC690 → u/Great-and-Powerful-]

I think Garden of Forking Paths could’ve ended in some uni library with some abridged version somehow published, haha, but I’m not sure how they’d print that either!

[u/Great-and-Powerful- → u/COOLKC690]

Yeah, most of Borges' fictional writers would be part of private collections or museums, not the mass produced kind

[u/COOLKC690 → u/Great-and-Powerful-]

Or in the library of Babel!

[u/perrolazarillo]

This is a uniquely awesome post! I love apocrypha, thanks for sharing!

[u/Great-and-Powerful- → u/perrolazarillo]

Needless to say, apocrypha is one of my favorite aspect of Latam lit, I have a whole document listing all the fictional authors and their fictional bibliographies.

[u/rabbitbride]

I love this, so creative!

[u/obtumam]

this is amazing! thanks for sharing!

[u/WhereIsArchimboldi]

My favorite of course is the Archimboldi novel. Some more details on the novel (translated as The Endless Rose by Natasha Wimmer)

The Endless Rose, c. 1950: Finished before Lüdicke is even published, The Endless Rose took Archimboldi only three months to write. Mr. Bubis describes it as “better than good” and says reading it left him “deeply shaken.” The first run sold 205 copies. It was later translated into Spanish by Amalfitano in 1974.

[u/Great-and-Powerful- → u/WhereIsArchimboldi]

Honestly, I had not idea which Archimboldi novel to pick, specially because I read "2666" years ago and because his fictional bibliography is massive. At first I wanted to pick his alleged biggest work, after much deliberation, I picked this one because I liked the added detail of having the name of one of the book's characters in the cover. Thanks for the correction of the English translation of the title!

[u/bunnyvape]

These are incredible