Shadow Cities

André Aciman, “Shadow Cities,” in Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity. Language and Loss, ed. Andre Aciman (New York: The New Press, 1999),15‑34.

Aciman considers how, for him, New York contains many cities and how one can stand in one spot in New York, look in different directions and be transported to other places and other times through memory, literature, and imagination. He writes about the experience of looking for one place in another, jumping from London to Paris and Rome, before ultimately revealing that the city he truly longs for is Alexandria. While his ideas are compelling and probably resonate for anyone who is living away from his/her birthplace, Aciman’s descriptions of the streets around Straus Park could use more concrete detail to more fully render them Parisian or Londonesque.

(Photo of Straus Park by Marnie Hall)(Photo of André Aciman, below, by Peter Foley)