André Aciman is the author of the novels Call Me By Your Name and Eight White Nights, the memoir Out of Egypt, and two collections of essays, Alibis and False Papers. He was born into a Jewish family in Alexandria where French, Italian, Greek, Ladino, and Arabic were spoken before moving to Italy at age 14 and the United States at age 17. He is the Executive Officer and Distinguished Professor of the Comparative Literature program at the CUNY Graduate Center.
André Aciman
Articles by André Aciman
Saturday February 8
Alexandria Irrealis
The Alexandria that Constantine Cavafy knew no longer exists. Nor does the Alexandria that E. M. Forster got to know during the First World War, nor the Alexandria that Lawrence Durrell lived in during the Second World War, nor for that matter does the Alexandria I knew growing up in the late Fifties and early Sixties. These Alexandrias no longer exist.