In 1967 John Barth published an article inspired by his love for the Argentinean poet and short story writer Jorge Luis Borges entitled “The Literature of Exhaustion,” in which he set the Argentinean master into a more general context that included Joyce, Beckett, and Kafka. It is not necessary to review the history of the readings, rereadings, and misreadings of Barth's article, an appreciative reception that turned the “literature of exhaustion” into a critical commonplace. I would like, however, to note two rather interesting consequences of Barth's essay. First, while Borges was well known and much appreciated in Latin America both in his own right and as a precursor of the “Boom” writers of the 1960s, for many inhabitants of North America Barth's article revealed a startling new talent on the world literary scene.