Fictional Libraries

The new collection of essays by the Spanish writer and critic Jorge Carrión (b. 1976) is dedicated to “the square whose vertices are publishing houses, bookstores, private and public libraries.” As in his debut, Bookstores, the author combines travel and cultural history into a single narrative to set off on a “pursuit of literary topographies.” He investigates the history of Villa Malaparte, strolls through London with the writer Iain Sinclair, talks with Alberto Manguel, director of the National Library of Argentina, recalling his predecessor, Borges, debates new and used bookstores with the essayist Luigi Amara, and gets drawn into the frantic pace of life in Miami. A tireless explorer of the book territory, Carrión sensitively registers its changes: digitalization and the threat of marketplaces, new store formats, the new life of libraries, the renaissance of book spaces of experiences in South Korea and Japan. And, of course, once again he declares his love for books, bookstores and libraries - not only physical ones, but also fictional ones. Those that famous authors - Cervantes, Verne, Borges - gave us in their works, and those that exist inside each of us. The publication is published as part of a joint project of Ad Marginem publishing house and Tochka bank.