André Aciman is an italian writer. His first novel (now a film), Call Me By Your Name, poignantly probes a boy’s erotic coming-of-age at his family’s Italian Mediterranean home. Elio – 17, extremely well-read, sensitive and the son of a prominent expatriate professor – finds himself troublingly attracted to this year’s visiting resident scholar, recruited by his father from an American university. Oliver is 24, breezy and spontaneous, and at work on a book about Heraclitus. The young men loll about in bathing suits, play tennis, jog along the Italian Riviera and flirt. Both also flirt (and more) with women among their circle of friends, but Elio, who narrates, yearns for Oliver. Their shared literary interests and Jewishness help impart a sense of intimacy, and when they do consummate their passion in Oliver’s room, they call each other by the other’s name.
André Aciman
