Homo Irrealis Essays
Homo Irrealis Essays by André Aciman, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on January 19, 2021, is a collection of 256 pages that delves into the complexities of time and creativity. In this edition, Aciman presents a series of reflections on the concept of irrealis moods, which signify events that may never occur or are desired but remain unfulfilled. Through his distinctive prose, he examines the lives and works of notable figures and the artistic landscapes they inhabit.
Readers will find a thoughtful exploration of what it means to exist outside the confines of time, as Aciman meditates on various subjects, including the nature of artistic expression and the resonance of memory. The essays touch on themes such as the potential of imagination and the significance of places like Alexandria and St. Petersburg. This collection invites contemplation on the might-have-beens and the creative mind’s ability to transcend temporal limitations, making it a profound addition to the literary collections genre.
Official synopsis Publisher
The New York Times–bestselling author of Find Me and Call Me by Your Name returns to the essay form with his collection of thoughts on time, the creative mind, and great lives and works
Irrealis moods are a category of verbal moods that indicate that certain events have not happened, may never happen, or should or must or are indeed desired to happen, but for which there is no indication that they will ever happen. Irrealis moods are also known as counterfactual moods and include the conditional, the subjunctive, the optative, and the imperative—all best expressed in this book as the might-be and the might-have-been.
One of the great prose stylists of his generation, André Aciman returns to the essay form in Homo Irrealis to explore what time means to artists who cannot grasp life in the present. Irrealis moods are not about the present or the past or the future; they are about what might have been but never was but could in theory still happen. From meditations on subway poetry and the temporal resonances of an empty Italian street to considerations of the lives and work of Sigmund Freud, C. P. Cavafy, W. G. Sebald, John Sloan, Éric Rohmer, Marcel Proust, and Fernando Pessoa and portraits of cities such as Alexandria and St. Petersburg, Homo Irrealis is a deep reflection on the imagination’s power to forge a zone outside of time’s intractable hold.
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