The fact is that all writers create their precursors. Their work modifies our conception of the past, just as it is bound to modify the future.
Cf. also the essay on Hawthorne in the same volume, in which Borges says: “Wakefield” prefigures Franz Kafka, but the latter modifies, and sharpens, the reading of “Wakefield.” The debt is mutual; a great writer creates his or her precursors. He or she creates them and in some fashion justifies them.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) “Kafka and His Precursors” ["Kafka y sus precursores"], Other Inquisitions [Otras inquisiciones] (1952).
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