The Island of Books

The first time I saw it I was thirteen years-old, that limbo of an age between childhood and adolescence when you already know who you are but don't yet know if that's who you will ever be. It was like love at first sight. I don't remember anything very specific, aside from a certainty, a wonder so deep it was like a stupor: I had found the place I had always been looking for, without realizing it, without even knowing it existed.

Twenty-five years would pass before I would see it again. When the time came to return, I suggested that we not go: we didn't have much time before we had to head back to Paris; they were calling for rain; it would probably be crawling with tourists. In truth, I was afraid, the way you're afraid any time you go back to the places of your childhood, afraid of finding them diminished, which means one of two things: either they appeared larger because your eyes were so small, or along the way you lost the knack for wonder, either of which is a devastating idea. But it hadn't changed, and neither had I.

From The Island of Books by Dominique Fortier 2015, translated by Rhonda Mullins 2016. Published by Coach House Books.