"The Secret Miracle" is a short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It was first published in the book Artifices in 1944.
The main character of the story is a playwright named Jaromir Hladík, who is living in Prague when it is conquered by the Nazis during World War II. Hladik is arrested and charged with being Jewish as well as opposing the Anschluss, and sentenced to die by firing squad.
Although he at first experiences simple...
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"The Secret Miracle" is a short story by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It was first published in the book Artifices in 1944.
The main character of the story is a playwright named Jaromir Hladík, who is living in Prague when it is conquered by the Nazis during World War II. Hladik is arrested and charged with being Jewish as well as opposing the Anschluss, and sentenced to die by firing squad.
Although he at first experiences simple terror at the prospect of death, Hladík's main concern soon turns to his unfinished play, titled The Enemies. His previous works he feels to be unsatisfactory, and wants to complete this play, which he feels to be the one by which history will judge and vindicate him. With two acts left to write and his death sentence to be carried out in a matter of days, however, it seems impossible that he could complete it in time.
On the last night before his death, Hladík prays to God, requesting that he be granted one year in which to finish the play....
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