Alberto manguel biography brevetti

Born in Buenos Aires in , Manguel grew up in Tel-Aviv, where his father served as the first Argentinian ambassador to Israel. At the age of seven, when his family returned to Argentina, he became fluent in Spanish, his first languages being English and German (which he spoke with his governess).

At sixteen years of age, while working at the Pygmalion bookshop in Buenos Aires, he was asked by the blind Jorge Luis Borges to read aloud to him at his home. For Manguel, the relationship was pivotal: he read to Borges from to At that time, he was attending the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, where he was inspired particularly by a teacher of literature whose subsequent collaboration with the military would provoke Manguel to write his first novel, News From A Foreign Country Came.

Manguel left Argentina for Europe before the horrors of the 'disappeared' began, and just after the events of May He credits Severo Sarduy, Hector Bianciotti, Julio Cortázar and Geneviève Serreau with gener