CONTEST Details

Borges didn’t write traditional stories — he built literary labyrinths. His work is dense with riddles, mirrors, libraries, invented texts, and philosophical paradoxes. This contest invites you to construct a story that doesn’t just move forward — it folds inward. Make your reader question reality, language, memory, or time.

Your story can be cerebral, surreal, mysterious, or meditative. It can be nonlinear, metafictional, or recursive. The only requirement is that the reader feels like they’ve entered a space where meaning shifts the longer they stay.

The best entries will feel more like puzzles than narratives — but with heart, not just intellect.

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• Think in loops, not lines. Your story doesn’t need to follow a traditional arc. It can circle itself, mirror itself, or unravel at the edges.

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• Invent what doesn't exist. Borges was a master at citing nonexistent books, authors, histories, or religions. Create your own myth, library, or theory — then treat it as fact.

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• Language is part of the puzzle. Use sentence structure, repetition, or ambiguity to create intentional disorientation or doubling. Let the prose mirror the story’s internal logic.

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• Ask unanswerable questions. What happens when time flows backward? What if a book rewrites itself? What if remembering something erases it?

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• Let your setting reflect your theme. Is your character inside a mirror-world? A maze of books? A city that forgets itself every night? Let place become metaphor.

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• Withhold some understanding. Borges never showed all his cards. It’s okay if your story ends with a question — as long as it’s the right one.

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• Reward rereading. The strongest stories may feel one way at first — and entirely different on a second pass. Layer your meaning carefully.