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I, who imagined Paradise in the form of a library.

Jorge Luis Borges, 'Poem of the Gifts'

Literature

The story behind the card

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), the Argentine writer of short stories and poems, became director of Argentina's National Library in 1955, just as hereditary blindness was taking his sight. In 'Poem of the Gifts', published in El hacedor (1960; in English, Dreamtigers), he marvels at the irony that God gave him, at the same moment, the books and the night. This line is where he remembers having pictured Paradise as a library. The popular sentence 'I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library' is a later paraphrase of it.

Türkçe oku
Cenneti bir kütüphane suretinde hayal eden ben.
Jorge Luis Borges, “Bağışlar Şiiri”

Arjantinli öykü yazarı ve şair Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), 1955'te, kalıtsal bir hastalık görme yetisini tam elinden alırken Arjantin Millî Kütüphanesi'nin müdürü oldu. El hacedor (Yapan, 1960) kitabındaki “Bağışlar Şiiri”nde, Tanrı'nın ona kitapları ve geceyi aynı anda vermesindeki ironiye hayret eder. Bu dize, cenneti bir kütüphane olarak hayal ettiğini hatırladığı yerdir. İngilizcede yaygın olan “Cennetin bir tür kütüphane olacağını hep hayal etmişimdir” cümlesi, bu dizenin sonradan yapılmış bir özetlemesidir.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Jorge Luis Borges
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