He would never get to all that knowledge, all those words, but that thought didn’t overwhelm him, either: not knowing was part of who he was, and liked being, because it meant there was so much left to discover in this life, including all those things he would never know completely, like himself.

(He was attracted to French literature but could enjoy it only in translation.) There, in the world of books, he found the world: Europe, Asia, Africa. But instead of feeling overwhelmed by these literary ghosts he was comforted by them, even when he didn’t speak their language. Though he didn’t know how, the books altered his bones. His body was not divisible from the aura of books. Sometimes he would go to the library and dream. This piece was drawn from “ Dawoud Bey: Seeing Deeply,” which is out in September from University of Texas Press.