"
The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" (original
Spanish title: "
El acercamiento a Almotásim") is a
fantasy short story written in 1935 by
Argentine writer
Jorge Luis Borges. In his autobiographical essay, Borges wrote about "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim", "it now seems to me to foreshadow and even to set the pattern for those tales that were somehow awaiting me, and upon which my reputation as a storyteller was to be based."