TWO MEETINGS WITH JORGE LUIS BORGES

The fact of living in the same city as a writer we admire does not mean a huge advantage in relation to the possibility of meeting him beyond what his pages offer.

In the event, Icould only see him a couple of times, both very briefly. The first occasion,was  in 1975, when he unexpectedly showed up at an art gallery I attended. He was extremely polite and even shy in his social behaviour. I do not remember who introduced us but he told me something about his latest book La rosa profunda (The Deep Rose), just published. He was very reticent in talking about himself or his work unless directly asked. By that time. I had not read him thoroughly nor was I particularly interested in his poetical or narrative work. Six years later I had devoured his complete works and had the chance of meeting him again at the Sociedad Argentina de Escritores (Argentinian Society of Writers).

As I had published my first book — in which Dylan Thomas had left a deep trace — I wanted to give Borges a copy with an inscription. I remember he took my book very politely. Listening to the reading of my inscription  —Borges had been blind since 1955 — he told me he did not deserve those words of sincere admiration; nobody did. When I told him I also admired Dylan Thomas and that the Welsh poet had had a powerful influence on my first book, he said that if I liked Dylan Thomas so much, I would also like Walt Whitman, "an author of other epiphanies", as he then defined it. I answered that I had read Whitman — with that certainty only allowed by the age of 20 and a first book published — and was not too enthusiastic about him.

Borges retorted that something similar had happened to Ezra Pound, who only came to appreciate Whitman's great work at an older age and that, if Pound had had that perception, it was probable the same would be happening to me: that I might be needing some more time to enter Whitman's poetics.

 I never saw Borges again but I kept on reading and re-reading his poems and narrations. Later these became a major influence in my writing. By then I already believed that a new author should try to premeditatively seek the influence of other writers, to counterbalance the influence received from one author with the reading of another.  LUIS BENITEZ

Graphic Novels - 'the literary comic book'

When I suggest that graphic novels are capable of having as much literary merit as a Dickens or a MAN Booker Prize nominee, I sometimes meet with snorts of derision from not only English teachers but my fellow librarians too. Their ill-informed perspective is that a graphic novel is essentially a trussed up comic book; that is, superheroes in tights fighting moustache-twirling villains over 100+ pages.

This is true to an extent, of course. Trouble is, people seem to think that it's truer to a greater extent than it actually is. It doesn't help when Waterstones seem to only stock superhero graphic novels (that's certainly the case in the branch at Leeds), and graphic novels are tucked away in the teenage zone of the public library, a place the rest of us tend not to 'invade'.

Anyone who's read Watchmen will testify that superhero graphic novels can be literature. The weighty ethical and political issues dealt with in this chilling alternative reality, in which Nixon is still president in 1985 and a consequence of superhero-assisted victory in Vietnam is a countdown to nuclear Armageddon, are as excitingly thought provoking and stimulating as just about any novel I can think of. Ditto Frank Miller's Batman books, a clear inspiration for the recent excellent Batman Begins and Dark Knight films.

But there are reams of brilliant graphic novels out there in which there isn't a cape or 'BIFF' sign in sight. Anyone who thinks the comic book medium can't grapple with truly powerful and horrifying episodes from human history, such as the Holocaust, should really read Art Spieglman's Maus books, which deal with precisely that. Marjane Satrapi's bittersweet memoir of her life before, during and after Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979 in Persepolis not only reads as a great history lesson, but it's a truly moving and involving rites of passage autobiographical tale in its own right.

And if intellectual mysticism is your bag, check out the brilliantly demented Neil Gaiman's Sandman books, in which the reader is invited on a dizzying, non-linear trip through space and time in the company of Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, and his family Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium and, grandest of all, Destiny, complete with a supporting cast that borrows deities from just about every culture in the world. Believe me, these books have as much philosophical, metaphysical and theological meat to get your teeth into as a Dostoyevsky.

I could go on and on, but that's enough from me. Open your mind to graphic novels, and you won't regret it. In case you're wondering I'm a school librarian, and had I not been one I'm not sure if the literary merit of graphic novels would have been something I'd have been alerted to. I definitely wouldn't have been aware of the merits of teenage fiction had I not got this job: and a post on why you shouldn't rule those out is what I'll be nagging you about in the near future...