A Plan for Escape

Adolfo Bioy Casares has collaborated with Jorge Luis Borges on a number of works. They compiled Anthology of Fantastic Literature (1940), a documentation of the development of Spanish American suprarealism, and Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi (1981), a playful and inventive variation on the theme of the detective who cannot visit the scene of the crime. Bioy Casares's numerous works are characterized by intelligence and a sense of playful fantasy. The Invention of Morel (1953), concerns a scientist's illusions about immortality. Asleep in the Sun is a bizarre tale written in an epistolary form. Ultimately the recipient of the letter is left to wonder whether, in fact, the puzzle has any solution or whether, like much of Bioy Casares's and Borges's work, it is an inside joke between author and reader.