Borges and me : an encounter

LONGLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZEIn frantic flight from the Vietnam War, Jay Parini leaves the United States for Scotland.

There, through unlikely circumstances, he meets famed Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges.

The pair embark on a trip to the Scottish Highlands, and on the way the charmingly garrulous Borges takes Parini on a grand tour of western literature and ideas while promising to teach him about love and poetry. Borges and Me is a classic road novel, based on true events.

It's also a magical tour of an era - like our own - in which uncertainties abound, and when - as ever - it's the young and the old who hear voices and dream dreams.