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The author of Call Me by Your Name returns with a deeply romantic memoir of his time in Rome while on the cusp of adulthood.
In Roman Year, André Aciman captures the period of his adolescence that began when he and his family first set foot in Rome, after being expelled from Egypt. Though Aciman's family had been well-off in Alexandria, all vestiges of their status vanished when they fled, and the author, his younger brother, and his deaf mother moved into a rented apartment (eventually revealed to be a recently vacated brothel) on Via Clelia. Though dejected, Aciman's mother and brother found their way into life in Rome, while Aciman burrowed into his bedroom. The world of novels eventually allowed him to open up to the city and, through them, discover the beating heart of the Eternal City.
Aciman's time in Rome did not last long before he and his family moved across the ocean, but by the time they did, he was leaving behind a city he loved. In this memoir, the author, a genius of "the poetry of the place" (John Domini, The Boston Globe), conjures the sights, smells, tastes, and people of Rome as only he can. Aciman captures, as if in amber, a living portrait of himself on the brink of adulthood and the city he worshipped at that pivotal moment. Roman Year is a treasure, unearthed by one of our greatest prose stylists. André Aciman is the author of Call Me by Your Name, Find Me, Eight White Nights, Out of Egypt, False Papers, Alibis, Harvard Square, Enigma Variations, and Homo Irrealis, and the editor of The Proust Project. He teaches comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and lives with his wife in Manhattan.
In Roman Year, André Aciman captures the period of his adolescence that began when he and his family first set foot in Rome, after being expelled from Egypt. Though Aciman's family had been well-off in Alexandria, all vestiges of their status vanished when they fled, and the author, his younger brother, and his deaf mother moved into a rented apartment (eventually revealed to be a recently vacated brothel) on Via Clelia. Though dejected, Aciman's mother and brother found their way into life in Rome, while Aciman burrowed into his bedroom. The world of novels eventually allowed him to open up to the city and, through them, discover the beating heart of the Eternal City.
Aciman's time in Rome did not last long before he and his family moved across the ocean, but by the time they did, he was leaving behind a city he loved. In this memoir, the author, a genius of "the poetry of the place" (John Domini, The Boston Globe), conjures the sights, smells, tastes, and people of Rome as only he can. Aciman captures, as if in amber, a living portrait of himself on the brink of adulthood and the city he worshipped at that pivotal moment. Roman Year is a treasure, unearthed by one of our greatest prose stylists. André Aciman is the author of Call Me by Your Name, Find Me, Eight White Nights, Out of Egypt, False Papers, Alibis, Harvard Square, Enigma Variations, and Homo Irrealis, and the editor of The Proust Project. He teaches comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and lives with his wife in Manhattan.
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Reviews
"Aciman evokes the passing of time in rich, meandering prose, rebuilding 1960s Rome in sentences suffused with light and sound and memories . . . Roman Year is both an affecting coming-of-age story and a timely, distinctive description of the haunted lives of refugees."
Aminatta Forna, The New York Times
"Aciman is a sensitive and passionate writer, and this volume's packed with human incident: friendships, meals, sex, politics and culture, music, film, art . . . A brave, sensuous, tender chronicle."
Joan Frank, The Boston Globe
"In rapturous prose, Aciman captures the shocks of beauty he experienced . . . during what amounted to a brief interlude on his way to the U.S. His poetic exploration of place and probing of what constitutes a home makes for exquisitely moving reading."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)