Dreamtigers has been heralded as one of the literary masterpieces of the twentieth century. It is acknowledged by its author, Jorge Luis Borges, as his most personal work. Composed of poems, parables, stories, sketches, and apocryphal quotations, Dreamtigers appears at first glance to be a dazzling sampler of the master's work. However, upon closer examination, the reader discovers the book to be a subtly and organically unified self-revelation.

Dreamtigers explores the mysterious territory that lies between the dreams of the creative artist and the "real" world. The central vision of the work is that of a recluse in the "enveloping serenity" of a library, looking ahead to the time when he will have disappeared but in the timeless world of his books will continue his dialogue with the immortals of the past—Homer, Don Quixote, Shakespeare. Like Homer, the maker of these dreams is afflicted with failing sight. Still, he dreams of tigers, real and imagined, and reflects upon a life that, above all, has been intensely introspective, a life of calm self-possession and absorption in the world of the imagination. At the same time, he is keenly aware of that other Borges, the public figure about whom he reads with mixed emotions: "It's the other one, it's Borges, that things happen to."