SOURCE: "Early Borges: Leveling Social Criticism through Satire," in The Christian Science Monitor, August 25, 1981, p. 18.

In the following review, Muther highlights the inherent social commentary of Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi and discusses the nature of Bioy Cassares's professional relationship with Jorge Luis Borges.

Soon after the outbreak of World War II the Germans chose to sink one of their own maimed warships near Montevideo Harbor, Uruguay, rather than face the British fleet on the open ocean. Just across the river in Argentina they knew they had friends to whom they could flee. In late 1939 the Argentines, ruled by a military coalition, were distinctly pro-Nazi.

But a year later an arcane, though unreserved, attack on the pro-German nationalists appeared on the front page of a prominent Argentine magazine. Its author, Jorge Luis Borges—who would first draw the eyes of international critics to Hispanic America after the...