Alberto Manguel

Alberto Manguel (born 1948 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine-born writer, translator, and editor. Manguel wrote non-fiction books such as "The Dictionary of Imaginary Places" (co-written with Gianni Guadalupi in 1980) and "A History of Reading" (1996) and novels such as "News From a Foreign Country Came" (1991). Manguel also wrote film criticism such as "Bride of Frankenstein" (1997) and essays such as "Into the Looking Glass Wood" (1998).

For over twenty years, Manguel has edited a number of literary
anthologies for a variety of themes or genres ranging from erotica and gay stories to fantastic literature and mysteries.

Career

Early years

Manguel grew up in Israel, where his father was the Argentinian ambassador. When Manguel was still a teenager, he met and befriended Jorge Luis Borges, a renowned Argentine writer, poet, literary critic, and translator. When Manguel was sixteen years old and working during his school holidays at the Pygmalion bookshop in Buenos Aires, Borges (then 58 years old) was one of the shop's regular customers. As Borges was almost blind, he asked Manguel to read books to him in Borges' apartment, something Manguel did several times a week from 1964 to 1968.

In a 2001 interview with Robert Birnbaum, Manguel stated that he had attended a "very good high school", the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, where the teachers were university professors who were "very enthusiastic about their field [s] ." After high school, Manguel "decided not to go to university", because "when I tried it, it didn’t work for me. I tried for one year and I said, 'No, this is boring and I will just try and study on my own.'” [ [http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/birnbaum_v/alberto_manguel.php Alberto Manguel by Robert Birnbaum - The Morning News ] ]

1970s

Manguel lived in Tahiti and Europe.

1980s-1990s

In 1980, Manguel co-wrote "The Dictionary of Imaginary Places" with Gianni Guadalupi. The book is a catalogue of fantasy lands, islands, cities, and other locations from world literature, including Ruritania, Shangri-La, Xanadu, Atlantis, L. Frank Baum's Oz, Lewis Carroll's Wonderland, Thomas More's Utopia, Edwin Abbott's Flatland, C. S. Lewis' Narnia, and the realms of Jonathan Swift and J.R.R. Tolkien. In 1983, Manguel selected the stories for an anthology "Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature".

In the mid-1980s, Manguel moved to Toronto, in central Canada, where he lived for twenty years. Manguel's early impression of Canada was that it was "...like one of those places whose existence we assume because of a name on a sign above a platform, glimpsed at as our train stops and then rushes on." He said that "...the word “Canada” awoke no echoes, inspired no images, lent no meaning to my port of destination"(from Passages: Welcome Home to Canada (2002), with preface by Rudyard Griffiths). [ [http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780143053699,00.html?sym=EXC THE PENGUIN DICTIONARY OF POPULAR CANADIAN QUOTATIONS - John Robert Colombo - Penguin Books ] ] . As well, though, Manguel noted that "When I arrived in Canada, for the first time I felt I was living in a place where I could participate actively as a writer in the running of the state." [ [http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/birnbaum_v/alberto_manguel.php Alberto Manguel by Robert Birnbaum - The Morning News ] ]

Manguel's novel, "News from a Foreign Country Came," won the McKitterick Prize in 1992. During the 1990s, Manguel contributed regularly to "The Globe and Mail" (Toronto), "The Times Literary Supplement" (London), "The Sydney Morning Herald", "The Australian Review of Books", "The New York Times" and the "Svenska Dagbladet" (Stockholm). He was appointed as the Distinguished Visiting Writer in the Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers Program at the University of Calgary.

2000s

Manguel won several international awards and honours in the 2000s. He was named Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 2004), Premio German Sanchez Ruiperez for best literary criticism (Spain, 2002) and the Prix Roger Caillois (France, 2004).

He has also been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. In the 2000s, Manguel moved to the Poitou-Charentes region of France, where he and his partner have purchased and renovated a medieval farmhouse. Among the renovations is an oak-panelled library to house Manguel's 30,000 books.

In 2007, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Liège.

He delivered the 2007 Massey Lectures which were later published as "The City of Words".

Works

*"The Dictionary of Imaginary Places" (1980), ISBN 0-02-546400-0
*"Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature" (1983, anthology), ISBN 0-517-55269-8
**"Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic" (1990, anthology), ISBN 0-88619-124-6
*"Dark Arrows: Chronicles of Revenge" (1985, anthology), ISBN 0-14-007712-X
*"Other Fires: Short Fiction by Latin American Women" (1986, anthology), ISBN 0-88619-065-7
*"Evening Games: Chronicles of Parents and Children" (1986, anthology), ISBN 0-14-007713-8
*"Chronicles of Marriage" (1988, anthology), ISBN 0-14-009928-X
*"The Oxford Book of Canadian Ghost Stories" (1990, anthology), ISBN 0-19-540761-X
*"Soho Square III" (1990, anthology), ISBN 0-7475-0716-3
*"News From a Foreign Country Came" (1991, novel), ISBN 0-517-58343-7
*"Canadian Mystery Stories" (1991, anthology), ISBN 0-19-540820-9
*"The Gates of Paradise: The Anthology of Erotic Short Literature" (1993, anthology), ISBN 0-921912-47-1
**"The Second Gates of Paradise: The Anthology of Erotic Short Literature" (1994, anthology), ISBN 0-921912-77-3
*"Meanwhile, In Another Part of the Forest: Gay Stories from Alice Munro to Yukio Mishima" (1994, anthology), ISBN 0-394-28012-1
*"A History of Reading" (1996, non-fiction), ISBN 0-394-28032-6
*"Bride of Frankenstein" (1997, film criticism), ISBN 0-85170-608-8
*"Into the Looking Glass Wood" (1998, essays), ISBN 0-676-97135-0
*"By the Light of the Glow-worm Lamp: Three Centuries of Reflections on Nature" (1998, anthology), ISBN 0-306-45991-4
*"Mothers & Daughters" (1998, anthology), ISBN 1-55192-127-8
*"Fathers & Sons" (1998, anthology), ISBN 1-55192-129-4
*"The Ark in the Garden: Fables for Our Times" (1998, anthology), ISBN 1-55199-030-X
*"God's Spies: Stories in Defiance of Oppression" (1999, anthology), ISBN 1-55199-040-7
*"Reading Pictures: A History of Love and Hate" (2000, art criticism), ISBN 0-676-97132-6
*"Kipling: A Brief Biography for Young Adults" (2000), ISBN 1-896209-48-3
*"Stevenson under the Palm Trees" (2003, novel), ISBN 0-88762-138-4
*"A Reading Diary" (2004), ISBN 0-676-97590-9
* [http://www.amigos-de-borges.net/site/english/maker/fervour_of_borges.php "With Borges"] (2004, biography), ISBN 0-88762-146-5
*"The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories" (2005, anthology), ISBN 0-670-06449-1
*"The Library at Night" (2006), ISBN 0-676-97588-7
*"The City of Words (CBC Massey Lecture)" (2007, non-fiction), ISBN 0-88784-763-3
*"Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey: A Biography" (2007, history and criticism), ISBN 9-78087-113-9

References

External links

* [http://www.alberto.manguel.com www.alberto.manguel.com] : Official Website
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/garden/15library.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all] :NYTIMES article by Alberto Manguel on his personal library