The Reverse Side of the Tapestry is the definition Cervantes gives of translation in Don Quixote; here, it is an essay on the translator's craft. Alberto Manguel has been a translator of many great writers – Borges and Marguerite Yourcenar into English; Katherine Mansfield and Paul Eluard into Spanish. In this book-length essay he delivers an eloquent meditation on the art of literary translation which, to Manguel's mind, is the keenest form of reading. Featuring original illustrations from Manguel himself.