Join us as we welcome New York Times bestselling author, Andre Aciman as our guest speaker following a congregational Shabbaton dinner.  Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name, Out of Egypt, Roman Year, Eight White Nights, and more, is the editor of The Proust Project. He also teaches comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the CUNY.

Aciman’s work, particularly his memoirs Out of Egypt and Roman Year, is deeply rooted in his life as an exile and immigrant and his wry sense of humor courses throughout his writing. His immigrant experiences shaped the recurring themes of displacement, a longing for belonging, nostalgia, and the reinvention of identity. His nuanced exploration of these themes stem from his multicultural background as a Jewish boy growing up in Alexandria, his family’s expulsion from Egypt in 1965 as political tensions rose, and their subsequent journey to Rome and eventually the United States.

Aciman’s multicultural upbringing and multiple migrations make language a complex and central theme in his works and created a fragmented sense of self and an ongoing quest for identity. Nostalgia isn’t just a sentimental reflection for him; it is a fundamental part of his being, but, key to his work is also the paradox of longing for a home that is destined to be lost.

Jordan Salama’s essays and reportage regularly appear in The New Yorker and other publications. An American writer of Argentine, Syrian, and Iraqi Jewish descent, he is the author of the books Every Day the River Changes and most recently, Stranger in the Desert, which follows the route of his great-grandfather, a Syrian Jewish traveling salesman in the Andes mountains. He is currently the co-producer of the film Qotzuñi: People of the Lake, a short documentary which officially qualified for the 2026 Academy Awards.