Library of Babel

Illustration, Process


I created an pop-up representation of Jorge Luis Borges’ The Library of Babel (1941).


The Library of Babel is a fictional universe conceived as a vast library of interwoven hexagonal rooms. Each room contains the bare necessities for sustaining life and four walls of bookshelves. The contents of these books are believed to contain every permutation of 23 characters. Most of the books are gibberish, but occasionally a word, sentence, or even page of coherent text can be found. In this all too precarious existence, the inhabitants of the universe assign meaning to the chaotic order that surrounds them. Some are driven mad, believing that one book exists that provides the master key to the entire library, a voice of god. The story is testament to the dubious human experience and efforts to find our purpose.


The first page and cover illustration plays with finding meaning within a coded universe. The letters are indecipherable until the viewer pulls the tab right, revealing the hidden title and question “You who read me. Are you sure of understanding my language?”



“In truth, the Library includes all verbal structures, all variations permitted by the twenty-five orthographical symbols, but not a single example of absolute nonsense. ….These phrases, at first glance incoherent, can no doubt be justified in a cryptographical or allegorical manner….No one can articulate a syllable which is not filled with tenderness and fear, which is not, in one of these languages, the powerful name of a god. (An n number of possible languages use the same vocabulary; in some of them, the symbol library allows the correct definition a ubiquitous and lasting system of hexagonal galleries, but library is bread or pyramid or anything else, and these seven words which define it have another value. You who read me, are You sure of understanding my language?)”


The centerfold opens and expands to a hexagonal lattice, recreating the fabric of the universe.



Illustrated Text:




I found a site that takes to heart Borges’ imaginary universe and strives to re-create the VIRTUAL LIBRARY online. I recommend excavating the library after reading the short story.

Jorge Luis Borges is one of my favorite authors, for his blend of philosophy, science and imagination. If you would like to check out more of his writing, I highly recommend Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges


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