From the Publisher
"It is Mr. Aciman's great achievement that he has re-created a world gone forever now, and given us an ironical and affectionate portrait of those who were exiled from it."--The New York Times Book Review
"Aciman may have gone out of Egypt but, as this evocative and imaginative book makes plain, he has never left it, nor it him."--The Washington Post
"With beguiling simplicity, Aciman recalls the life of Alexandria as [his family] knew it, and the seductiveness of that beautiful, polyglot city permeates his book."--The New Yorker
"Beautifully remembered and even more beautifully written."--Los Angeles Times Book Review "The past recaptured in [Aciman's] elegant memoir is full of cucumber lotion and Schubert melodies, Parmesan cheese and the chatter of backgammon chips--all the smells and sounds of Alexandria that he knew before [leaving]."--The New Republic
"To find Alexandria in these pages, all rosy and clear-eyed from the tonic of Aciman's telling, is the greatest imaginable gift."--James Merrill
"An extraordinary memoir of an eccentric family, a fascinating milieu, and a complex cosmopolitan culture. This beautifully written book combines the sensuousness of Lawrence Durrell, the magic of Garcia Marquez, and the realism of intimate observation. A rich portrait of a surprising and now-vanished world."--Eva Hoffman, author of Lost in Translation