March 24, 2025
André Aciman was born in Alexandria, Egypt, lived in Italy and France, and is an American memoirist, essayist, novelist, and scholar. He is the New York Times bestselling author.
André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name
I have been a foreigner in many countries but never a local. As a writer of memoirs, I have given the matter much thought. Although all memoirs tell the story of what happened, what a memoir is not always able to do is narrate what was desired to happen but never did happen. To write what happened is one thing—that’s what autobiographies are supposed to do—but to probe the psychological intricacies of desire, fear, heartache, disappointment, etc., is usually the domain of novels, not even of memoirs. But then here is the paradox: a memoir can borrow the conventions of fiction, even wants to sound novelistic, but without inventing facts. This is the major difference between the might-have-been, which our minds are always flirting with, as opposed to the usual marshalling of past, present, and future. One can be elsewhere in space; but one can also be elsewhere in time. And this is what I’ve written about.
This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the departments of English, creative writing and Italian and Italian studies.
Biography (provided by the speaker)
was born in Alexandria, Egypt, lived in Italy and France, and is an American memoirist, essayist, novelist, and scholar. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name and Find Me as well as of Out of Egypt. His new memoir, My Roman Year, was just released and will be followed by Room on the Sea this coming June. He teaches comparative literature at the CUNY Graduate Center and is the creator and director of The Writers’ Institute.
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Further information
- Location: Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium
- Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
- Cost: $0.00