Abstract. This paper goes to show that highly important strands of Borges’s imagination illustrate a major adventure of the 20th and 21st centuries that focusses on the human genome project. The discovery of the helical structure of DNA in 1953 has been accompanied by metaphorical visualization that has its equivalent in literature. Many of these images strongly recall the fictional and non-fictional works of Borges. In his works, there is such an abundance of allusions to writing, reading, and codes as if the images used by scientists had been taken out of the Argentinian writer’s works (or vice-versa). The key-image discussed is the “Book of Life,” with its labyrinthine, library-like structure which makes consciousness possible, as well as chimeras and transplantations. Both strands of creative and scientific work seem to be driven by similar impulses and it is in the images themselves that we might find an answer as to their motivating power.

 

Key words: genetics; codes; transplantation; metaphor; H. G. Wells; Kafka

 

Schenkel E (2025) Chimeras in the library: Jorge Luis Borges and genetics. Creativity 8(1): 539–565. doi:10.22381/C8120252