The protocol, which formalizes the installation of the Alberto Manguel Library, in Lisbon, was signed this Saturday, September 12th, by the president of the Lisbon City Hall, Fernando Medina, and Alberto Manguel, at a ceremony next to Pavilhão Carlos Lopes.
With the “final unpacking” of the books, which have been in boxes for years, the “renaissance, which will allow the library – and the treasure it represents – to make its most profitable use and its most ambitious international projection” begins, “he said. Medina.
It is an “honor for us that, given so many possible destinations, so many hypotheses spoken, so many latent alternatives, Lisbon has been the destination chosen by Alberto Manguel for his library through a magnificent and generous donation”, stressed the Mayor.
The writer Alberto Manguel will also live in Lisbon, a city that becomes “a haven for civilized dialogue”. “You will not lose a library, you will win a magical city,” said the Argentine writer.
The donation to the city began, symbolically, with the offer of two books that are “particularly dear” to the writer: a manuscript bible, from the 13th century, and a unique volume of the Labor encyclopedia published in 1928. The book, he revealed, has the signature of its owner, Jorge Luís Borges, and handwritten notes, with the complete structure of the short story “La busca de Averroes”, written and published years later.
The collection of the writer will integrate the future Center for the Study of the History of Reading (CEHL), in the Palace of Marqueses de Pombal, in Rua das Janelas Verdes.
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