Out of Egypt: A Memoir

REVIEW OF "OUT OF EGYPT" for Amazon.com July 12, 2007Andre Aciman describes his colorful and complicated life (and family)inAlexandria in the 1960s. Childhoods like that are often the preparationfor a life of writing. The child absorbs all the peculiarities as part ofnormal life without knowing they are peculiar until much later. Then theyneed to make sense of it all. All this is heightened by the fact that the Acimans are Jewish, in aMuslim country still resonating with the after effects of British rule.Hisexperiences in the theoretically best school in Alexandria, run byBritish teachers, would be funny if they weren't so awful. For completecognitive dissonance,his parents force him to learn Arabic to survive.Reading about those lessons alone is worth the price of this book. Athome they speak Ladino, the Sephardic Yiddish, among themselves. His beautful mother was born deaf. When provoked she can produce ahigh-pitched scream. used to good effect at the butcher's. Once she hasmade her point they are all quite happy. The butcher has to give the packageto her Arab servant. She never touches an Arab's hand. The Acimans and Andre's maternal relatives live in a state of mutualscorn, but when faced with the threats of Pan-Arab nationalism pull together veryefficiently. Eventually they all flee, the sedate Sephardic merchantsand the shady international adventurers too. Two other writers come to mind when reading this book. Laurence Durrellevokes something of the same atmosphere in his Alexandria Quartet and EliasCanetti grew up in a large Sephardic family in Bulgaria. That society hascompletely disappeared. Without Canetti's memoirs one would not know it had everexisted. This is an eloquent and elegiac account of that love and absurdityknown as a family.

This is a true story about one, rather large, Jewish family living in Egypt thru WWII, thru the Israeli War of Independence in 1948, and up until Nasser's defeat in the Sinai Campaign of about 1957. The book details the various characters in the family, their social lives, and how they blended with the general, Arab population of Egypt for decades. The book is a very good history, from the particular perspective of this, perhaps typical, Jewish family. It details how their lives changed because of the Israel-Egypt wars of the 40s and 50s. It gives a very clear and vivid picture of what it was to live under such, at times, very stressful conditions while not actually being involved in the wars. I would recommend the book to others who may have wondered about the lives and times of Jews living in Arab countries at war with Israel, both before and after it became a legitimate State of Israel. The book is somewhat similar to- The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, which also covers about the same time frame in Egypt of a different, Jewish family in Cairo, who then emigrated to America when they too could no longer live, safely in Egypt in the 40s and 50s.

Andre Aciman's Out of Egypt is an amazing book, I found it very hard to put down. At a time of increased hostility in the middle east it is heartwarming to read of a time when Jews lived in peace with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in Alexandria. Not a whiff of anti Jewish sentiments was reported by Aciman until after the Suez War. Aciman and his family left Egypt in the sixties.Aciman, like many "Egyptian" Jews preferred to hold European nationalities and in some cases some were French or Italian without ever setting foot in these countries. Europeans had their own courts in Egypt and did not fall under Egyptian Laws. For Aciman, born and raised in Egypt and in many ways no different than many affluent Alexandrians life became unbearable after the waves of Nationalization in the early 60's.Aciman writes of an Alexandria that no longer exists not just for Egyptian Jews. The population explosion in Egypt has transformed Alexandria beyond recognition; hence Aciman's beautiful writing of Alexandria, its beaches and its tram will bring floods of memories for anyone who's known Alexandria.Affluent Egyptian Jews who left Egypt in the fifties and sixties are not immediately thought of as refugees and there is little discussion on their issues of identity and affiliation in Egypt and elsewhere. Aciman through his acute sensitivity to the people and events around him and his wonderful story telling skills has produced beautifully written and very touching book that subtly challenges many assumptions on all sides.Readers will see the very same Alexandria in Leila Ahmed's Border Passage and in parts of Ahdaf Souief's In the Eye of the Sun. Enjoy

This memoir is the very best I've read. It takes the author from his earliest years as part of a large Jewish family which moved from Turkey to Alexandria (he was born in 1951), through the air raid sirens during Suez war with France and England, to the expulsion of the Jews by Nasser in the late 1950s, and then on to his adulthood in America and his return to Egypt following his marriage. After a lengthy opening section dating roughly from age 5 or 6, the narrative skillfully skips back and forth in time. The descriptions of the boy's exotic world and his dysfunctional extended family are priceless, as are the re-invented conversations and arguments among the adults who surround him. There is something Proust-like in the writing, a love of detail for the texture it creates, and something Nabokov-like as well, in the hooded humor and artful language. I found it utterly captivating and written with love, especially for his mother, who was born deaf. I heartily recommend it to anyone who contemplates or is writing a memoir.

Same over and over again

A picture of a family in 20th century Egypt ravished by forces beyond their control. It is not a nostalgic memoir, far from (just) that. It is imbued with humor and understanding. Despite the fact that it is in a way a chronicle of the destruction of Egyptian Jewish community it is written in a very entertaining style. I enjoyed every page.

Magnífico libro y magnífica història, excelentemente narrada.

Die Familien-Geschichte aus der Sicht eines in einer sephardisch jüdischen Familie heranwachsenden Jungen, die aus Istanbul vertrieben wurde.Es wird beschrieben, wie die faszinierende Umgebung Alexandrias in den 50 er und 60er Jahren zur Heimat und zum späteren Sehnsuchtsort wurde, erzählt mit einen milden ironischen Blick auf die große Familie mit der ewig in Hassliebe einander verbundenen Großmutter und ihrer Schwester, zum Schluss wieder in die gemeinsame Emigration nach Paris gezwungen. Der Rest der Familie wird über ganz Europa und nach Amerika vertrieben.Eine typische Geschichte des 20ten Jahrhunderts, erzählt ohne Bitterkeit und Hass.

This wonderful book pulls you into the life of a young boy, Jewish, living in an Egypt that no longer exists. The memories are so evocative that seem to be your own. Highly recommended to all readers.

I loved this book! I was so impressed with the quality of the writing, especially since English is not the author's first language. It is a real marvel to be able to write in a second language better than most in their native language.I enjoyed the author's family's story, especially since my ex-husband's family was from Egypt and had similar background and parallels. I think that anyone would find this book fascinating and well written.