Photo by Christopher Ferguson. André Aciman speaks as part of the About: Sex special on Sep 18, 18:00, at Silent Green.
Slotted untidily into this year’s focus on LGBTQ authors, André Aciman (born 1951 in Alexandria, Egypt, before emigrating to New York, via Rome and Paris) rides the tide of renewed interest in his 2007 novel Call Me By Your Name (to which he has now written a sequel, due for 2019 publication) as well as the 2019 German translation of his Enigma Variations (Fünf Lieben lang). Both novels are driven by critically lauded explorations of lust, but it’s CMBYN and its 2017 filmic translation that have become objects of cultish reverence. Seeking to exploit this adulation, the litfest features Aciman in the About: Sex special (Silent Green, Sep 18, 18:00), where he discusses the presentation of gay sex in literature. Married with three sons, Aciman eschews questions about his own sexuality. He prefers to describe the mechanisms of desire and obsession as a state of mind and set of circumstances linked to identity and memory. A classic case of showing – but not telling!
André Aciman in the About: Sex special | Sep 18, 18:00, Silent Green