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[Photo Credit : Fronteiras do Pensamento, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons]
Before he was a public intellectual, before the Order of Canada, Alberto Manguel was just a curious kid born in Buenos Aires (1948), growing up between countries because of his father’s diplomatic work. That meant two things early on: 1) books travelled better than anything else, and 2) identity could be portable. That mindset is very immigrant-Canadian: you can belong in more than one place at once.
The formative scene everyone loves is real: as a teenager working in the Pygmalion bookshop in Buenos Aires, he sometimes read aloud to Jorge Luis Borges, who was then losing his sight. Imagine that—being a teen and reading to the guy who wrote “The Library of Babel.” That moment is like the origin story of his whole career: books are not just objects; they’re shared experiences.
✨ A Spark Becomes a Calling
Lots of people love reading. Manguel decided to study reading.
After leaving Argentina during its darker political years, he eventually settled in Canada, where he could write, translate, edit, and move in more than one language without looking over his shoulder. Canada became the place where his multilingual, nomadic mind actually fit.
Then came the book that made him famous beyond lit circles: A History of Reading (1996).
What made it special?
- It wasn’t just “here are books through time.”
- It was: why do humans read? how do we read? what changes when we read silently, or in public, or on screens?
- And it braided stories—from medieval monks to modern commuters—into one big, accessible narrative.
That book got translated everywhere. Teachers taught it. Readers kept it. And suddenly an Argentine-born Canadian writer was the person you call when you want to talk about libraries, memory, imagination, and the future of the book.
“We read to understand, or to begin to understand.”
That line is so good you can put it on your Pinterest cards, IG carousels, or as a pull-quote in your blog.
❤️ Building More Than a Career
Manguel didn’t do the “one big book and disappear” thing. He kept extending the idea:
- Books about libraries (personal libraries, national libraries, imaginary ones)
- Books about curiosity and language
- Essays on translation, exile, and the reader’s role
This is important for your audience: he proved you can build a career not on inventing stories, but on illuminating them—on being the person who explains why reading matters. That’s a viable intellectual path in Canada.
And Canada noticed.
He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada for “contributions as a writer, editor and leading advocate of literacy and reading.” That’s Canada saying: scholarship and cultural interpretation are nation-building, too.
🌍 Full Circle to Argentina
Then it got poetic.
In 2016, he was appointed Director of the National Library of Argentina—the same institution that Borges once directed. Teen Manguel used to read to Borges. Grown-up Manguel succeeded him in the role. You can’t script that better.
That’s a beautiful immigrant lesson: exile or migration doesn’t sever your roots; sometimes it equips you to return with more authority.
🧠What You Can Steal
- Make curiosity your product.
He didn’t try to out-novel novelists; he doubled down on the thing he was uniquely obsessed with—reading itself. - Work in more than one language.
Because he moved through Spanish, French, and English worlds, his audience was bigger than one market. Newcomers can do this too—Canada rewards multilinguals. - Turn personal history into authority.
“I read to Borges as a teen” isn’t bragging; it’s context. It tells you he’s been thinking about reading for decades. - Stay international while rooted.
Canada was his base, not his cage. He lived, taught, and directed elsewhere while still being recognized here. Your site’s audience will like that: you can be Canadian and global.
