Seven Nights collects seven lectures that were taped during the summer of 1977 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. These recordings were later pirated as records, only to be reclaimed by Borges, who edited them for publication as a series for a Buenos Aires newspaper. "The lectures are separate literary journeys that we could not take by ourselves", writes Alastair Reid in his introduction: "Borges is our Virgil; only he knows the way". For Borges, The Divine Comedy is a true story; nightmares are beautiful; The Thousand and One Nights is endless; Buddhism shall always evade Western understanding; poetry exists to illustrate perfection; the Kabbalah proves the existence of God in man; and blindness is a gift. A room full of mirrors, Seven Nights is a speculation on multiple reflections and the ideal introduction to Borges"s nonfiction.