Future of Borges estate in limbo as widow doesn’t leave will

April 10, 2023 9:08 AM

The rights to the works of the late Jorge Luis Borges, considered Argentina’s most internationally significant author of the 20th century, have fallen into limbo because his widow died last month without a will.
posted by Etrigan (21 comments total)

Surely the will is filed away somewhere in the Library of Babel.
posted by ejs at 9:30 AM on April 10, 2023 [27 favorites]

Infinite variants of it, all with different typos.

Anyway, yeah, as one who did some graduate work in Spanish lang-and-lit back in the day: this is gonna get real messy, duck and cover.
posted by humbug at 9:32 AM on April 10, 2023 [7 favorites]

Luckily, a young author in Estonia has independently written a body of work that is entirely identical with Borges' writings, with the one caveat that many of the words, while textually indistinguishable, carry different meanings.
posted by phooky at 9:34 AM on April 10, 2023 [88 favorites]

A) The clear intent is that every dispute in the distribution of the estate should be resolved with a knife fight.

B) The will is part of a different reality that is slowly overtaking ours - just wait a bit and it'll show up.
posted by LionIndex at 9:41 AM on April 10, 2023 [10 favorites]

Oof, this paragraph suggests the story may be more complicated.

Borges died in 1986 at age 86 and left Kodama, a translator and writer whom he had married earlier that year, as his only heir. They never had children.

She was 38 years younger than Borges and they married months before his death. To be fair, Wikipedia says they'd known each other for over a decade, maybe longer. She was his literary secretary and assistant.

I wonder if her inheritance of Borges' estate was contested back in 1986?
posted by Nelson at 10:08 AM on April 10, 2023

B) The will is part of a different reality that is slowly overtaking ours - just wait a bit and it'll show up.

Who knows, maybe Tlön will suck less.
posted by humbug at 10:10 AM on April 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

Has Argentina (or any other country) ever nationalized the rights to the works of one of their authors?
posted by echo target at 10:18 AM on April 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Surely there is a Barely Imagined Being that is made entirely of will, such that it contains the will even of terrestrial creatures that left no will of their own? They should look there.
posted by mark k at 10:30 AM on April 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Has Argentina (or any other country) ever nationalized the rights to the works of one of their authors?

Russia, 1917. Sort of a special case.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 10:36 AM on April 10, 2023 [9 favorites]

As Eriugena wrote, "The end of all motion is its beginning."
Our laws recognize this in that death, surely the end of all motion, is followed by a beginning in what we call, amusingly, the will - as though the dead have a call on this world despite having left it.
Surely a true will, in order to reflect the desires of the dead, would be an invisible object of ever increasing desire to the living. An obsession that overpowers without being expressible in words.
Beyond the silvery, mirrored surface of death there can be no motion and yet the hungry ghosts use our weakness for words to make us dance.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:39 AM on April 10, 2023 [8 favorites]

Does this effectively place it in the public domain? Who would have standing to sue?
posted by BrotherCaine at 11:03 AM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

It seems that Kodama’s nephews and nieces will probably inherit.

Last fall I read Jorge Luis Borges: A Writer on the Edge by Argentine literary scholar Beatriz Sarlo. These were originally lectures given in the mid-90s in some English university or other.

It’s a really fascinating take on Borges, because it primarily situates him within his national context. I’m used to thinking about Borges as a global figure, writing about the world, and there were therefore many aspects I had missed about his stories. Reading his stories afterwards was really nice, like meeting a friend after a long time, seeing them in a fresh way. I heartily recommend Sarlo’s book.
posted by Kattullus at 11:10 AM on April 10, 2023 [9 favorites]

... ugh, literary estates with multiple heirs are worse even than the usual run of literary estate.

That said, I don't put much trust in that Buenos Aires Times story. "Hi, we're here" is not a terribly strong probate case in the absence of a will, I'm thinking.
posted by humbug at 12:18 PM on April 10, 2023

Sheesh, few authors more fitting for such a postmortem tangle. Kafka, maybe!
posted by potrzebie at 12:23 PM on April 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

humbug: That said, I don't put much trust in that Buenos Aires Times story. "Hi, we're here" is not a terribly strong probate case in the absence of a will, I'm thinking

Argentina’s legal system is based on Civil Law, not Common Law, so wills aren’t strictly necessary, and can’t override the rights of rightful familial heirs. This includes nephews and nieces, if no closer relative remains. Even if there was a will, they would have rights to at least two-thirds of the estate (or more, depending on the specifics of Argentine inheritance law).
posted by Kattullus at 12:40 PM on April 10, 2023 [11 favorites]

Ah, that makes a difference! Thanks, Kattullus, TIL.
posted by humbug at 1:29 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

"Even if there was a will, they would have rights to at least two-thirds of the estate (or more, depending on the specifics of Argentine inheritance law)."

Huh, that'd be annoying to me. Laws about obligate inheritances to spouses and children are reasonable, you have responsibilities to them, but if I wanted to leave my money to charity (or my literary papers to a university) I'd be annoyed if some asshole niece/nephew I'd never met got the majority of it instead.

I wonder if that's why she never made a will, she discovered she couldn't actually leave stuff to the organizations she wanted to? Though the answer in that case would be to arrange the donations of Borges' papers while she was still alive, and set up a foundation to control the literary rights.
posted by tavella at 3:06 PM on April 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

These numerical echoes are something:

Borges died in 1986 at age 86 and left Kodama, a translator and writer whom he had married earlier that year, as his only heir. They never had children. She died March 26, also aged 86.

Mathonance?
posted by doctornemo at 4:10 PM on April 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

You might say she got... 86ed.
posted by Nelson at 4:22 PM on April 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

In all seriousness, PSA to Metafilter users: Make a will! You never know what'll happen tomorrow. Do you want your wealth tied up in court fees or given to the State by default? Who's gonna take care of your pets? Who's raising your kids? (Do they want to raise your kids?) Do you want your kids to receive everything in one lump sum when they turn 18 (perhaps spent by 19), or will a trust dole out money on a schedule? Who's in charge of the trust? Even if you don't have much wealth, decide on your health preferences and make them known. Who's allowed to make medical decisions on your behalf if you're unable to make them yourself? Want a DNR/DNI order if you're unresponsive? And if you have a will, is it still up-to-date? Have you listed any people that have fallen out of favor?
posted by Dez at 7:42 AM on April 11, 2023 [5 favorites]

Slightly Off topic, but if you like Borges:

Jay Parini's extended Borges anecdote

Firing Line's Near Hour Long Interview
posted by BWA at 2:52 PM on April 11, 2023