My Roman Year

1960s Rome. As teenage André stands on the dock, his mother fusses over their luggage - 32 suitcases, trunks and tea chests that contain their world. The ship will refuel and return to Alexandria, the home where they have left their father, as the Aciman family begin a new adventure in Rome. André is now head of the family, with a little brother to keep in line and a mother to translate for - for although she's mute, she is nothing if not communicative.

Equal parts transporting and beautiful, this coming of age memoir shares the luminous, fragile truth of life for a family forever in exile, living in Rome, but still yet to find a home.

Review

It's [Aciman's] slow appreciation of the city that shapes this transporting coming-of-age memoir in which beauty and the anguish of exile and displacement are rendered with the same sensuous, questing intensity that characterises his fiction. ― Observer

Aciman's characteristic roman d'analyse style of writing allows the memoir to read like a novel . . . just below the surface lies generational trauma and displacement, which has been masterfully woven into the narrative. Compelling and witty, My Roman Year gives a touching insight into the influences of André Aciman's well-loved literary world. ― New Statesman

An absorbing exploration of the challenges and slivers of beauty that formed life as a refugee in Rome. ― Kirkus Reviews, starred review

A wry and touching memoir. ― New York Review of Books, on OUT OF EGYPT

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, on OUT OF EGYPT

A remarkable memoir . . . Aciman does an exquisite job of conjuring up the daily rhythms and rituals of his family life. ― New York Times, on 'Out of Egypt'

Aciman's evocation of emotional subtlety and time passing is wonderful. ― Guardian

There is a warmth and a humanity in Aciman's prose that enraptures with its slow, easy embrace. ― Financial Times

[Aciman] writes with typically hypnotic elegance. ― i

Aciman pieces together a rich tapestry of human emotion in a way few other contemporary writers can match. ― Dazed

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.