Author behind Call Me By Your Name says he believes ‘everyone is polyamorous in one way or the other’ – as he recounts learning about sex from prostitutes in new memoir
The Call Me By Your Name author has admitted he believes “everyone is polyamorous in some way” and opened up about his unusual childhood.
André Aciman, 73, who wrote the novel that inspired the infamous racy film, was born in Alexandria but spent his youth travelling between Egypt, Italy and the US.
In his new memoir, My Roman Year, he describes Mr Aciman’s teenage years in the Italian capital, when he spent most of his time thinking about “sex and books”, he explains.
The author tells how he learned about sex from prostitutes, calling it a “terrible way to understand sex and sexuality… but that’s just how it was in those days.”
André Aciman, 73, who wrote the novel that inspired the notoriously racy film, was born in Alexandria but spent his youth travelling between Egypt, Italy and the US.
In an extensive interview, Mr. Aciman tells the Sunday Times how he was expelled from Alexandria in the 1960s, as part of a large exodus of Jews from the Middle East after the Suez Crisis.
The author’s first novel, Out of Egypt, describes this experience, and the six novels that followed were generally intense and erotic, largely set in Italy.
His best-known film, Call Me By Your Name, was adapted into a film in 2017 starring Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer. The film won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The film is primarily a love story and follows Elio and Oliver, a couple with a significant age difference, during a summer in Italy.
His most famous novel, Call Me By Your Name, was adapted into a 2017 film starring Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer. The film won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The film is primarily a love story, following Elio and Oliver – a couple with a significant age difference – during a summer in Italy
It contains some intense love scenes, as is usual in his work. It was a habit that made Mr. Aciman wonder: ‘Isn’t everyone polyamorous in some way?’
He says, “Aren’t we all? Do we still have to put labels on? I hate labels.
‘I hate nationalities, I hate religions.
“I hate anything that identifies you with one group and not the other.”
It contains some intense love scenes, as is usual in his work. It was a habit that made Mr. Aciman wonder: ‘Isn’t everyone polyamorous in some way?’
When asked whether the story of Call Me By My Name was inspired by his own experiences with men, Mr. Aciman replied, “That’s a question I won’t answer.”
He does, however, tell about an experience he had on a crowded bus, when he leaned against an older male stranger.
“There was definitely something there, and it told me more about myself than I knew. It told me that I was open to that thing, to that experience, if it happened in my life,” Mr. Aciman says.