Out Of Egypt: A Memoir
Julio Cesar Thap
Book Reviews' 121 Out of Egypt: A Memoir, by Andre Aciman. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1994. 340 pp. $20.00. Most historians of the modem Arab world, like myself, are accustomed to work with archival data and engage in field work. Those of us who also examine a memoir that blends prose with historical testimony may feel they are either caught in a complex web of incomprehensible literary gibberish or undergoing a most gratifying learning experience. Andre Aciman's memoir is most certainly gratifying. It is about the author's life in Alexandria during the 1950s and 1960s, in the era of Nasser and the Arab-Israeli conflict: the fmal days ofcolonialism in the Arab world. This was a time when strong currents ofxenophobia were directed at the "exploiters ofthe past"-foreigners, Jews, Christian minorities. Under the cover ofelegant and witty prose Aciman chronicles the life ofa Sephardi Jewish family imbued in Ottoman, Ladino, Italian, and French culture, a family whose members were endowed with different nationality status as was frequently the case in Sephardi families that entered Egypt a'fier the third quarter of the nineteenth century. His book is laced with data that is vital for historians, sociologists, and anthropologists, not merely of the Jews of Egypt but also of their relations with other communities: Muslim, Greek, Armenian, European. Set in Alexandria, the memoir is reminiscent of chronicles on similar Jewish communities I read, such as cosmopolitan Tangier. Like Moroccan Tangier, with its French- and Spanish-named boulevards and its multi-cultural school system, Alexandria was populated by diverse multilingual nationals, among them Jews, who at one time or another enjoyed the protection offoreign consuls, affected the local real estate market, and owned major department stores, banks, and houses of commerce. Like the noted Pariente, Pino, Toledano, Hasan, and Laredo families ofpre-1956 Tangier, Alexandria had its Sephardi and Italian Jewish counterparts, among them Aghion, Rolo, and de Menasce. Aciman's Alexandrian family is portrayed in the memoir as well established and flamboyant, one whose leading members-Uncle ViIi, a former Italian fascist, two domineering grandmothers, the "Princess" and the "Saint," the father, Aunt Elsa, Uncle Isaac, Uncle Nessim-were true daredevils. The family and its Egyptian servants appeared to have coexisted quite happily, as did most Alexandrian Jews with their nonJewish neighbors, Christians and Muslims, despite the evidence of certain communal tensions, mutual ethnic suspicions, and the growing xenophobic tendencies among Muslims. The central point in Aciman's saga is his family's fmding its Alexandrian dream crumbling during and subsequent to the Sinai/Suez War ofOctober-November 1956. Though mostly concentrating on his family, the main threads weaving through Aciman's book are themes pertaining to Jewish and other minority communities' self- 122 SHOFAR Summer 1997 Vol. 15, No.4 liquidation process in face of Nasser's Pan-Arab, antisemitic, anti-Zionist and antiWestern manifestations: the need to smuggle liquid assets out of the country; the disintegration of a city's complex cosmopolitan culture with the emergence of Egyptianization and cultural Arabization; the expulsion of Jews and foreigners in the push for national homogeneity; sequestration/nationalization of immovable.assets and freezing of bank accounts; and the feeling among Jews that government secret police agents and informants violated their privacy. In my own research I, too, found similar evidence as to the regime's attitude vis-a-vis the Jews. (See Chapter 8 in Michael M. Laskier, The Jews ofEgypt: 1920-197D-In the Midst ofZionism, Antisemitism and the Middle East Conflict, New York University Press, 1992.) Regardless oftheir Eurocentric tendencies, many Jews did not make the decision to leave Egypt because of disenchantment with the local milieu. They left reluctantly in light of the regime's measures to deprive them of their dignity and assets. True, ordinary Egyptians occasionally manifested contempt toward the Jews after the 1950s, as Acirnan confIrms when he and his uncle Isaac encountered anti-Jewish slurs from Alexandrian Muslim youths after the Suez War (p. 183). Aciman demonstrates, however, that the Muslims were basically tolerant, but under Nasser were prodded by the authorities to manifest displeasure with the Jews and other "non-patriotic" elements. The regime's propaganda against Europeans and...
FADEL: In her new graphic memoir, titled "It Won't Always Be Like This," Malaka revisits those summers in Cairo and how they shaped who she is today. She didn't speak much Arabic. And her new stepmom, Hala Gamal (ph), spoke very little English. But that didn't stop them from forging a bond.
He is the author of several novels, including Call Me by Your Name (winner, in the Gay Fiction category, of the 2007 Lambda Literary Award[10] and made into a film) and a 1995 memoir, Out of Egypt, which won a Whiting Award.[11] Although best known for Call Me by Your Name,[12] Aciman stated in an interview in 2019 that his best book is the novel Eight White Nights.[13]
Aciman's 1996 memoir Out of Egypt, about Alexandria before the 1956 expulsions from Egypt, was reviewed widely.[22][23][24] In The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani described the book as a "remarkable memoir...that leaves the reader with a mesmerizing portrait of a now vanished world." She compared his work with that of Lawrence Durrell and noted, "There are some wonderfully vivid scenes here, as strange and marvelous as something in García Márquez
Meanwhile in the travelogue Wild Woman: A Footnote, the Desert, and My Quest for an Elusive Saint, author Amy Frykholm takes a more personal approach to exploring the mysterious Mary of Egypt, whom she calls an "icon of desire." Frykholm sets out to discover the saint's life narrative by physically embarking on Mary's path through the Nile, Alexandria, Jerusalem and the desert, including stops at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Monastery of St. Gerasimos along the Jordan River. Blending her own quest for transformation with that of her subject, the author deftly weaves memoir and hagiography to create a compelling read. For Frykholm, Mary is both a woman wild with desire and an ascetic who goes to the desert to find peace, wholeness and transformation.
Prince, an associate professor at Suez Canal University, has written a personal account of the revolution as was experienced by a participant on the front line. Her reflections provide necessary texture to the many dry scholarly works calculating the social forces and high politics at play in Egypt, and they show how the changing political scenary was viewed from the ground up. The title captures how the personal and the political are closely intertwined, and Prince vividly maps the journey from academic to revolutionary with all the detours and problems you would expect in such a fraught environment. This memoir is rich with hard-earned insight, but two themes in particular stand-out: the role of social media in the revolution and the relationship between Egyptians and the military.
Egyptian-American author Mona Eltahawy is set to publish a memoir about her menopause journey inspired by the ancient Egyptian woman king Hatshepsut. The book is titled The King Herself: How Hatshepsut Helped Me Unbecome and will be released by Mariner Books, an imprint of Harper Collins.
This richly colored memoir chronicles the exploits of a flamboyant Jewish family, from its bold arrival in cosmopolitan Alexandria to its defeated exodus three generations later. In elegant and witty prose, André Aciman introduces us to the marvelous eccentrics who shaped his life--Uncle Vili, the strutting daredevil, soldier, salesman, and spy; the two grandmothers, the Princess and the Saint, who gossip in six languages; Aunt Flora, the German refugee who warns that Jews lose everything "at least twice in their lives." And through it all, we come to know a boy who, even as he longs for a wider world, does not want to be led, forever, out of Egypt.
The Grammy Award-winning singer is working on a memoir about her successful kidney transplant last year and about the death of her sister, Cookie, on the very day Natalie had her operation. Cole also will share memories of her father, crooner Nat "King'' Cole.
Publisher Simon & Schuster announced Monday that the book, "Love Brought Me Back," will come out in November. Cole is collaborating with David Ritz, who helped with memoirs by Ray Charles and Marvin Gaye.
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