Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere by André Aciman [rare books]

Book Summary: 

Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere is a collection of deeply personal and reflective essays by André Aciman, best known for his novel Call Me by Your Name. In this collection, Aciman explores themes of memory, identity, displacement, and the allure of places both real and imagined. The essays span locations such as Paris, Rome, Alexandria, and New York, where the author reflects on the meaning of exile, longing, and belonging.

The central idea running through Alibis is that places are never experienced in a purely physical or geographical sense—they are also shaped by imagination, memory, and desire. Aciman calls these emotional escapes “alibis,” allowing him to avoid confronting a present that feels insufficient compared to an idealized past or a dreamt-up elsewhere.

With his signature lyrical prose, Aciman captures the essence of nostalgia and the bittersweet nature of longing. Each essay serves as both a meditation on a specific locale and a deeper philosophical inquiry into the self, time, and the impermanence of human experience.

About the Author: 

André Aciman is an acclaimed writer, essayist, and professor, born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1951 to a Sephardic Jewish family. He emigrated with his family due to increasing political instability and antisemitism, first to Italy and later to the United States. These early experiences of exile and cultural displacement profoundly influenced his writing.

Aciman holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University and is currently a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), where he teaches the history of literary theory.

He is best known for his novel Call Me by Your Name (2007), which won the Lambda Literary Award and was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film in 2017. Aciman's work often deals with memory, exile, desire, and the complexity of human emotions—frequent themes in both his fiction and nonfiction.

His other notable works include Out of Egypt (a memoir), Eight White Nights, Enigma Variations, and Homo Irrealis. Aciman is widely regarded for his introspective, elegant prose and his ability to evoke the emotional undercurrents of time and place.