The Lottery in Babylon
by Jorge Luis Borges
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See Also
- Jorge Luis Borges (Critical Survey of Mystery & Detective Fiction, Revised Edition)
- Jorge Luis Borges (Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition)
- Jorge Luis Borges (Dictionary of World Biography: The 20th Century)
- Jorge Luis Borges (Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition)
- Theory of Short Fiction (Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Jorge Luis Borges
- First Published: 1941
- Type of Plot: Fantasy
- Time of Work: Unspecified
- Setting: Babylon
- Genres: Short fiction, Fantasy
- Subjects: Gambling, Metaphysics, Fate or fatalism, Life, philosophy of, Middle East, Games, Lotteries, Luck or misfortune
- Locales: Asia, Babylon, ancient
The Story
The narrator, who is about to sail away, recalls his life in Babylon, where everything is ruled by chance. There is a lottery in Babylon that began as most lotteries do, offering relatively modest prizes that did not inspire many to participate. Later the possibility of drawing fines was added to the lottery: For every thirty winning numbers there was to be one requiring payment of a fine. People who did not participate in the lottery came to be scorned as mean-spirited. When some people refused to pay the fines (from which winners were paid), nonpecuniary awards and...
(The entire page is 1126 words.)
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