Out of Egypt

Review A dazzling evocation of a time and a place... When I began Out of Egypt, it was the vividness of its social history that struck me. When I finished it, it was the timeliness, maybe even the necessity, of its publication... I was borne along by the brio of the writing. -- Michael Kerr ― The Telegraph The author's skill comes in maintaining a critical distance and an affectionate warmth while painting [these colourful characters]. ― Big Issue in the North Aciman -- his mother's darling, his teachers' despair, his father's worry, a child spy in a house of eccentric, cultivated adults -- here recalls with a magical sensibility streaked with antic humor. A marvelous memento of a place, time and people that have all disappeared. ― Publishers Weekly A clear- eyed eulogy of a lost past and a family in decline... A skillful portrayal of an extraordinary clan. ― Kirkus Product Description From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name and Find Me, a memoir of an extraordinary life. '[A] mesmerizing portrait of a now vanished world. Aciman's story of Alexandria is the story of his own family, a Jewish family with Italian and Turkish roots that tied its future to Egypt and made its home there for three generations, only to find itself peremptorily expelled by the Government in the early 1960's. It is the story of a fractious clan of dreamers and con men and the emotional price they would pay for exile, the story of a young boy's coming of age and his memories of the city he loved in his youth. Writing in lucid, lyrical prose, Mr. Aciman does an exquisite job of conjuring up the daily rhythms and rituals of his family's life: their weekly trips to the movies, their daily jaunts to the beach, their internecine squabbles over everything from religion to money to the pronunciation of words. There are some wonderfully vivid scenes here, as strange and marvelous as something in Garcia Marquez, as comical and surprising as something in Chekhov.' Michiko Kakutani, New York Times Aciman's latest novel, Find Me, is now available for preorder in paperback. Book Description The unforgettable memoir from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name From the Back Cover A mesmerizing portrait of a now vanished world. Aciman's story of Alexandria is the story of his own family, a Jewish family with Italian and Turkish roots that tied its future to Egypt and made its home there for three generations, only to find itself peremptorily expelled by the Government in the early 1960's. It is the story of a fractious clan of dreamers and con men and the emotional price they would pay for exile, the story of a young boy's coming of age and his memories of the city he loved in his youth. Writing in lucid, lyrical prose, Mr. Aciman does an exquisite job of conjuring up the daily rhythms and rituals of his family's life: their weekly trips to the movies, their daily jaunts to the beach, their internecine squabbles over everything from religion to money to the pronunciation of words. There are some wonderfully vivid scenes here, as strange and marvelous as something in Garcia Marquez, as comical and surprising as something in Chekhov. About the Author André Aciman is the New York Times bestselling author of Call Me By Your Name, Out of Egypt, Eight White Nights, False Papers, Alibis, and Harvard Square, Enigma Variations, Find Me, and the essay collection Homo Irrealis. He's the editor of The Proust Project and teaches comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He lives with his wife in Manhattan.