In 1972, Jorge Luis Borges was a sage of literature. Seventy years old, blind, and feted around the world for his delicately phantasmagoric fiction, he was visited by Fernando Sorrentino, a dedicated fan. They talked for a week.

Here’s a piece of advice Borges gave Sorrentino, noted by Faena Aleph:

I believe that a writer should never attempt a contemporary theme or a very precise topography. Otherwise people are immediately going to find mistakes. Or if they don’t find them, they’re going to look for them, and if they look for them, they’ll find them. That’s why I prefer to have my stories take place in somewhat indeterminate places and many years ago…

Anybody who has written or tried to write fiction with specific contemporary settings which depart in any way from their lived experience knows what he is talking about. Doing such work requires a lot of work that goes beyond writing. Research, interviews, all of it.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile. If everybody wrote like Borges, we would have no Dreiser, Wolfe, Bellow, and so on. But there is something to be gained from just writing a story of sensation, thoughts, and actions with no or little regard for where it takes place.

If nothing else, it’s liberating.

_{The Writer’s Year 2025 calendar is on sale now.}