Alberto Manguel is a Canadian Argentine-born writer, translator, and editor. Renowned for his prolific contributions to literature, Manguel is an anthologist, essayist, novelist, and a former director of the National Library of Argentina.

Born on March 13, 1948, in Buenos Aires, Manguel is a cosmopolitan and polyglot scholar, fluent in English, Spanish, German, and French, and advanced in Italian and Portuguese. He left Argentina at the age of twenty and has since resided in various countries, including Israel, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, French Polynesia, Canada, the United States, and Portugal.

Manguel's notable non-fiction works include The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (1980), co-written with Gianni Guadalupi, A History of Reading (1996), The Library at Night (2007), and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: A Biography (2008). Among his novels are News From a Foreign Country Came (1991) and works written in Spanish, such as El regreso and Todos los hombres son mentirosos. He has also penned film criticism and essay collections, including Bride of Frankenstein (1997) and Into the Looking Glass Wood (1998).

In 2007, Manguel was honored as the annual lecturer for the prestigious Massey Lectures and, in 2021, delivered the Roger Lancelyn Green lecture for the Lewis Carroll Society. His literary anthologies cover a wide array of themes, from erotica and gay stories to fantastic literature and mysteries.

Manguel champions the central importance of books in society and advocates for libraries as essential symbols of collective memory. Currently, he directs an international center for reading studies in Lisbon, known as Espaço Atlântida.