Pl Burston's top 10 gay fictn books | Books | The Guardian

Contents:

• PL BURSTON'S TOP 10 GAY FICTN BOOKS
• CATEGORY:BRISH GAY WRERS
• 25 MOST INFLUENTIAL GAY AUTHORS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

PL BURSTON'S TOP 10 GAY FICTN BOOKS

The only place to fd a d signal of ristance was the pag of a book.Homosexualy was partly crimalised 1967. Shared among gay iends, we uld celebrate our growg nfince and visibily wh new work om Alan Hollghurst and Jeate Wterson, velop a mp sensibily by quotg to each other l om EF Benson and Ronald Firbank, image that London uld bee the queer Ardia picted Armistead Mp’s Tal of the Cy.As we moved towards assiatn the 1990s, Dennis Cooper’s Gee Mil novel cycle was a remr that sexualy was still transgrsive, that sire remaed a dark and disptive force.

It’s a such a tenr moment and a remr of the kdns and nnectn that is possible between all of .Pl MenzAuthor of Rabow MilkCeremoni by Essex Hemphill (Pengu)The hugely fluential gay Ain Amerin poet Essex Hemphill died of Aids-related plitns 1995, aged 38, jt one month before the lnch of protease hibors – early antiretrovirals – which might have saved or at least prolonged his life.

CATEGORY:BRISH GAY WRERS

In the wrgs and radil cema he left behd – cludg llaboratns wh Marlon Riggs Tongu Untied (1989) and Isaac Julien Lookg for Langston (1989) – he provid subsequent generatns wh evince that we lived and loved, and of our fight agast the effects of tersectg whe supremacy, racism, homophobia and heterosexism.

Gay Amerin men had barely one ’s grace between the liberatn movement and the begng of the Aids crisis, which Hemphill wrote about as vally as anyone.

And if that isn’t the five gay experience, what is?Colm TóibínNovelist, playwright, poet and cric whose books clu Brooklyn, The Ttament of Mary and The MagicianThe Trial of Father Dillgham by John Brorick (Abac)John Brorick was born the Irish midlands 1924 and died 1989. There is an element of dullns and ordars about them that is unual a novel of that time that has homosexualy at the foreont.

25 MOST INFLUENTIAL GAY AUTHORS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

Brorick’s novel is an important document that dramatis hidn gay liv the Dubl of 40 years ago.Tom CreweDebut novel The New Life was published this yearFrank Sargon’s Collected Stori, 1935-1963 (Pengu)Frank Sargon’s short stori are nversatnal. In 1929 Sargon had been nvicted of mtg homosexual acts, and he wrote unr an assumed name (he was born Norris Davey 1903) to avoid beg nnected wh his past.

Maybe there’s nothg and maybe there is.”Neil BartlettTheatre director, playwright and thor of novels cludg Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall and Addrs BookNocturn for the Kg of Napl by Edmund Whe (Pidor)In 1980, when I was livg a beds and “gay” was a word still largely spoken between ntemptuo verted mas, a chanced-upon newspaper review alerted me to the existence of an unknown Amerin wrer whose third book had jt ma to the UK. I very much look forward to her follow-up Brawyrms later the year.Jackie KayAward-wng Makar (Natnal Poet for Stland) and thor of fictn and nonfictn cludg Red Dt Road, Tmpet and Bsie SmhSister Outsir by Audre Lor (Pengu Classics)In an terview Ada Gay Griff and Michelle Parkerson’s 1995 documentary about her life, A Lany for Survival (the name of one of Lor’s semal poems), Audre Lor said prciently: “What I leave behd has a life of s own.” Yet even she, pneer that she was, would not perhaps have foreen how much her ias about poetry (“poetry is not a luxury”); about polics, about race (“the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s hoe”); and about sexualy have entered the public nscns. He was the epome of the upright, public-spired, homosexual expat, nductg a distguished reer om Alexandria and Athens – two of his bt novels are about life Alexandria, wh illic passn throbbg unr the rtraed surface.