2022
ASF Pomegranate Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature
Biography
André Aciman is the New York Times bestselling author of Out of Egypt(winner of a Whiting Award), Call Me By Your Name (winner, in the Gay Fiction category, of the 2007 Lambda Literary Award and made into a film), Eight White Nights, False Papers, Alibis, Harvard Square, Enigma Variations, and Find Me. He’s the editor of The Proust Project and currently serves as Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of City University of New York, where he teaches comparative literature.
Born in 1951, in Alexandria, Egypt, André and his family were exiled from Egypt amidst growing antisemitism after the Suez war in 1956, first moving with his mother and brother as refugees to Rome, and finally settling down in New York City in 1968.
In 1973, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Comparative Literature from Lehman College. Later, he enrolled at Harvard University, where he first received a Master of Arts degree and then a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Comparative Literature in 1988.
In 1997, André began working as an associate professor of French at Bard College. Later, he also taught Creative Writing at New York University and French literature at Princeton University. In 2009, Aciman held a post of Visiting Distinguished Writer at Wesleyan University.
His books have earned him a reputation as a skilled author and as a careful, engaging observer on the subjects of home and family.