Original Spanish:

Debo a la conjunción de un espejo y de una enciclopedia el descubrimiento de Uqbar. El espejo inquietaba el fondo de un corredor en una quinta de la calle Gaona, en Ramos Mejía; la enciclopedia falazmente se llama /The Anglo-American Cyclopaedia/ (New York, 1917) y es una reimpresión literal, pero también morosa, de la /Encyclopaedia Britannica/ de 1902. El hecho se produjo hará unos cinco años. Bioy Casares había cenado conmigo esa noche y nos demoró una vasta polémica sobre la ejecución de una novela en primera persona, cuyo narrador omitiera o desfigurara los hechos e incurriera en diversas contradicciones, que permitieran a unos pocos lectores--a muy pocos lectores--la adivinación de una realidad atroz o banal.

Alastair Reid's translation from FICCIONES:

I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia. The unnerving mirror hung at the end of a corridor in a villa on Calle Goana, in Ramos Mejía; the American Cyclopaedia (New York, 1917), and is a literal if inadequate reprint of the 1902 Encyclopedia Britannica. The whole affair happened some five years ago. Bioy Casares had dined with me that night and talked to us at length about a great scheme for writing a novel in the first person, using a narrator who omitted or corrupted what happened and who ran into various contradictions, so that only a handful of readers, a very small handful, would be able to decipher the horrible or banal reality behind the novel.

James E. Irby's translation in LABYRINTHS:

I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia. The mirror troubled the depths of a corridor in a country house on Gaona Street in Ramos Mejía; the encyclopedia is fallaciously called The Anglo-American Cyclopaedia (New York, 1917) and is a literal but delinquent reprint of the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1902. The event took place some five years ago. Bioy Casares had had dinner with me that evening and we became lengthily engaged in a vast polemic concerning the composition of a novel in the first person, whose narrator would omit or disfigure the facts and indulge in various contradictions which would permit a few readers--very few readers--to perceive an atrocious or banal reality.

Andrew Hurley's translation from COLLECTED FICTIONS:

I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia. The mirror troubled the far end of a hallway in a large country house on Calle Gaona, in Ramos Mejía; the encyclopedia is misleadingly titled The Anglo-American Cyclopaedia (New York, 1917), and is a literal (though also laggardly) reprint of the 1902 Encyclopedia Britannica. The event took place about five years ago. Bioy Casares had come to dinner at my house that evening, and we had lost all track of time in a vast debate over the way one night go about composing a first-person novel who narrator would omit or distort things and engage in all sorts of contradictions, so that a few of the book's readers--a very few--might divine the horrifying or banal truth.

Norman Thomas de Giovanni's translation (from his web page):

I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the concurrence of a mirror and an encyclopaedia. The mirror unsettled the far end of a corridor in a villa in Gaona Street, in the Buenos Aires suburb of Ramos Mejía; the encyclopaedia, fraudulently entitled The Anglo-American Cyclopaedia (New York, 1917), is an exact, if belated, reprint of the 1902 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. All this took place four or five years ago. Bioy Casares had dined with me that evening and we'd lingered over a discussion on the mechanics of writing a novel in the first person, in which the narrator omitted or distorted events, thereby creating discrepancies that would allow a handful of readers--a tiny handful--to come to an appalling or banal realization.

04 May 2016