"One of the many pleasures which literature has to offer is that of the narrative. This book will endeavour to lay before the reader some examples of the genre: some of them imaginary happenings, some historical events. For our purpose, we have interrogated the epochs, without neglecting the ancient and generous sources of the East. The anecdote, the parable, and the narrative have all been welcome, on the condition that they be brief. The essence of the narrative is to be found, we venture to think, in the present pieces..We trust, reader, that these pages will amuse you as they have amused us."

So say Jorge Luis Borges and his longtime friend and collaborator, Adolfo Bioy Casares, in their preliminary note to Extraordinary Tales.