The name al-Mu'tasim is also used for a fictional character in the story The Approach to al-Mu'tasim by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, which appears in his anthology Ficciones.
The central mainstream literary idol of the movement not surprisingly is Jorge Luis Borges whose Ficciones serve as a model for many of these anonymous writers.
His short parables, written with an abundance of poetic detail and wonderful fertility of invention – though occasionally bordering on the whimsical – are sometimes compared to the ficciones of Jorge Luis Borges.