ABSTRACT
As a quintessential fictional text about translation, "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" can be uniquely helpful in raising questions and stimulating productive discussions on some of the most obvious commonplaces associated with originals and their reproductions. An attentive examination of Menard's further elaboration of his method will show students that Jorge Luis Borges's convincing satire can be even more corrosive. Instructors and students working with the story could begin their examination of such issues by probing Menard's alleged definition of history as "the very fount of reality". Similarly, in Julio Cortázar's story, the translator dares not to repress his creativity while inhabiting Andrea's authorial space and ends up destroying her carefully arranged composition. Considering that both Borges's and Cortázar's stories revolve around the death of their fictional translators, instructors and students could pursue the associations these stories seem to suggest between their characters' deaths and the legacy they leave behind.
