French Literature Reviews - 2026

Alberto Manguel, Packing Up My Library - An Elegy and a Few Digressions
Writers: Biography, Letters and Memoirs

Alberto Manguel

Packing Up My Library - An Elegy and a Few Digressions

Actes Sud

ISBN : 978-2-330-11365-0

162 p.

18.00 €

OVERVIEW

Seeking to come to terms with the painful experience of having to pack up his life's work—a library of thirty-five thousand volumes he had spent a lifetime patiently, passionately, and lovingly gathering—Alberto Manguel recounts the profound cost of leaving his seventeenth-century presbytery in the heart of the Loire Valley to move to New York and, ultimately, to Buenos Aires, the city of his childhood. There, he served for a time as Director of the National Library of Argentina, a position once held by his beloved and illustrious mentor, Jorge Luis Borges.

In this work, Manguel embarks on an emotional journey spanning his life and history, revisiting the countries he has lived in and reflecting on his numerous relocations, each driven by the quest for a place to finally house his books—without which he cannot work, and perhaps cannot even live. Manguel's lifelong passion for books and libraries intersects with a personal upheaval that further deepens the reflections of this renowned scholar of reading, whose prolific oeuvre consistently champions the book as one of the most powerful antidotes to the pangs of exile.

The physical relocation of a private library has long served as a poignant motif in intellectual history, touching upon broader themes of displacement, memory and the material culture of reading. Scholars and writers across various traditions have frequently reflected on how personal collections anchor identity and intellectual life, making the dispersal or packing of books an act charged with both psychological and cultural significance. These reflections often intersect with the wider tradition of bibliophilic literature, where the arrangement of volumes mirrors the inner landscape of the collector.

Readers interested in memoirs exploring the emotional resonance of reading and personal libraries may find this volume relevant. Alberto Manguel examines the painful experience of packing up a library of thirty-five thousand volumes after leaving his seventeenth-century presbytery in the Loire Valley to move to New York and Buenos Aires. The work recounts his emotional journey, his numerous relocations driven by the quest to house his books, and his time serving as Director of the National Library of Argentina, reflecting on the book as an antidote to exile.