Kesh already mentioned Jorge Luis Borges, but I really don't want you to overlook him. I read him when I was about 16 and I don't think I have ever been as confused/englightned up until then. This thread has inspired me to read him again.

Around the same time as Borges I was reading a Spanish author named Miguel de Unamuno. Anothes one I'd recommend. Philosophical, as well.

I would also recommend Marguerite Yourcenar's short stories. The collection I read was called Oriental Tales.

A more contemporary writer I'd recommend is definitely Jhumpa Lahiri. Her short stories book Interpreter of Maladies is one of my favorites.

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The fresh heartbreak was, in a sense, like being in a foreign country; everything seemed alien, brilliant and glinting. It was as if I’d been flayed, so that even the air hurt. When you’re that unhappy, any glimmer of beauty or consolation feels like running into an old friend abroad, or seeing mountaintops through smog. Maybe we mistakenly think we want “happiness,” which we tend to picture in very vague, soft-focus terms, when what we really crave is the harder-edged intensity of experience.

impressionable books for me have been:

Philip K. Dick - Valis
F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tender is the Night
Ken Kesey - Sometimes a Great Notion
Olaf Stapledon - Star Maker
John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath

leiste Borges en espanol o ingles? le hace diferencia?
i'm going to Argentina for the summer and was going to bring Cortazar (Rayuela) and Borges.. which one should I get?

Lo leí en español. Creo que es mucha la diferencia particularmente porque el título de una de sus historias más conocidas es El jardín de de senderos que se bifurcan y en ingles es simplemente tradicido a The Garden of Forking Paths. Pero la verda es que no creo que alla una palabra en ingles que tiene el mismo poder que 'bifurcar.'

No conozco a Cortazar. I am biased.

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The fresh heartbreak was, in a sense, like being in a foreign country; everything seemed alien, brilliant and glinting. It was as if I’d been flayed, so that even the air hurt. When you’re that unhappy, any glimmer of beauty or consolation feels like running into an old friend abroad, or seeing mountaintops through smog. Maybe we mistakenly think we want “happiness,” which we tend to picture in very vague, soft-focus terms, when what we really crave is the harder-edged intensity of experience.

cortazar is a bit gimmicky but axolotls is a good story

hurley's translations of borges are much criticised

i'd like to read alfredo bioy casares but don't know if i can find any translations.

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marzipan marzipan marzipan marzipan