Harvard Square: A Novel

Fiction & Literature, Literary
Cover of the book Harvard Square: A Novel by André Aciman, W. W. Norton & Company
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: André Aciman ISBN: 9780393240313
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Publication: April 8, 2013
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company Language: English
Author: André Aciman
ISBN: 9780393240313
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication: April 8, 2013
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English

“[Aciman’s] best so far. . . . An existentialist adventure worthy of Kerouac.”—Clancy Martin, New York Times Book Review

André Aciman has been hailed as "the most exciting new fiction writer of the twenty-first century" (New York magazine), a "brilliant chronicler of the disconnect…between who we are and who we wish we might have been" (Wall Street Journal), and a writer of "fiction at its most supremely interesting" (Colm Tóibín). Now, with his third and most ambitious novel, Aciman delivers an elegant and powerful tale of the wages of assimilation—a moving story of an immigrant’s remembered youth and the nearly forgotten costs and sacrifices of becoming an American.

It’s the fall of 1977, and amid the lovely, leafy streets of Cambridge a young Harvard graduate student, a Jew from Egypt, longs more than anything to become an assimilated American and a professor of literature. He spends his days in a pleasant blur of seventeenth-century fiction, but when he meets a brash, charismatic Arab cab driver in a Harvard Square café, everything changes.

Nicknamed Kalashnikov—Kalaj for short—for his machine-gun vitriol, the cab driver roars into the student’s life with his denunciations of the American obsession with "all things jumbo and ersatz"—Twinkies, monster television sets, all-you-can-eat buffets—and his outrageous declarations on love and the art of seduction. The student finds it hard to resist his new friend’s magnetism, and before long he begins to neglect his studies and live a double life: one in the rarified world of Harvard, the other as an exile with Kalaj on the streets of Cambridge. Together they carouse the bars and cafés around Harvard Square, trade intimate accounts of their love affairs, argue about the American dream, and skinny-dip in Walden Pond. But as final exams loom and Kalaj has his license revoked and is threatened with deportation, the student faces the decision of his life: whether to cling to his dream of New World assimilation or risk it all to defend his Old World friend.

Harvard Square is a sexually charged and deeply American novel of identity and aspiration at odds. It is also an unforgettable, moving portrait of an unlikely friendship from one of the finest stylists of our time.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

“[Aciman’s] best so far. . . . An existentialist adventure worthy of Kerouac.”—Clancy Martin, New York Times Book Review

André Aciman has been hailed as "the most exciting new fiction writer of the twenty-first century" (New York magazine), a "brilliant chronicler of the disconnect…between who we are and who we wish we might have been" (Wall Street Journal), and a writer of "fiction at its most supremely interesting" (Colm Tóibín). Now, with his third and most ambitious novel, Aciman delivers an elegant and powerful tale of the wages of assimilation—a moving story of an immigrant’s remembered youth and the nearly forgotten costs and sacrifices of becoming an American.

It’s the fall of 1977, and amid the lovely, leafy streets of Cambridge a young Harvard graduate student, a Jew from Egypt, longs more than anything to become an assimilated American and a professor of literature. He spends his days in a pleasant blur of seventeenth-century fiction, but when he meets a brash, charismatic Arab cab driver in a Harvard Square café, everything changes.

Nicknamed Kalashnikov—Kalaj for short—for his machine-gun vitriol, the cab driver roars into the student’s life with his denunciations of the American obsession with "all things jumbo and ersatz"—Twinkies, monster television sets, all-you-can-eat buffets—and his outrageous declarations on love and the art of seduction. The student finds it hard to resist his new friend’s magnetism, and before long he begins to neglect his studies and live a double life: one in the rarified world of Harvard, the other as an exile with Kalaj on the streets of Cambridge. Together they carouse the bars and cafés around Harvard Square, trade intimate accounts of their love affairs, argue about the American dream, and skinny-dip in Walden Pond. But as final exams loom and Kalaj has his license revoked and is threatened with deportation, the student faces the decision of his life: whether to cling to his dream of New World assimilation or risk it all to defend his Old World friend.

Harvard Square is a sexually charged and deeply American novel of identity and aspiration at odds. It is also an unforgettable, moving portrait of an unlikely friendship from one of the finest stylists of our time.

More books from W. W. Norton & Company

Cover of the book Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression by André Aciman
Cover of the book The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution by André Aciman
Cover of the book Storming Heaven: A Novel by André Aciman
Cover of the book The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution by André Aciman
Cover of the book Reading and Writing Cancer: How Words Heal by André Aciman
Cover of the book Sex Addiction as Affect Dysregulation: A Neurobiologically Informed Holistic Treatment (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) by André Aciman
Cover of the book Modern Liberty: And the Limits of Government (Issues of Our Time) by André Aciman
Cover of the book The Reflective Parent: How to Do Less and Relate More with Your Kids by André Aciman
Cover of the book The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944 by André Aciman
Cover of the book Waistland: A (R)evolutionary View of Our Weight and Fitness Crisis by André Aciman
Cover of the book The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by André Aciman
Cover of the book What Goes On: Selected and New Poems 1995-2009 by André Aciman
Cover of the book Going For a Beer: Selected Short Fictions by André Aciman
Cover of the book Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief by André Aciman
Cover of the book A Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean by André Aciman
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy