25 Most Influential Gay Authors You Should Know About - Disver Walks Blog

Contents:

• 25 MOST INFLUENTIAL GAY AUTHORS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT
• CLASSIC GAY MALE LERATURE
• TOP 100 GAY NOVELS OF THE XXI CENTURY
• GAY AUTHORS BOOKS
• GAY BOOKS

25 MOST INFLUENTIAL GAY AUTHORS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

Their varly humane and hilar portras of queerns and same-sex love and lt—and the everyday liv of those who experience them—are illumatg, whether you’re gay, straight, or somewhere between. Meticuloly rearched and ttly plotted, books such as The Last of the We (1956) and The Persian Boy (1972) naturalistilly pict gay love agast a vivid, betifully renred backdrop of war and polil BaldwJam BaldwUPI/Bettmann ArchiveBaldw’s semal novel Gvanni’s Room (1956), about a tragic love affair between a nfed Amerin man and his Italian boyiend Paris, unflchgly exam the societal prejudic that kept (and ntue to keep) many people om acknowledgg their sexual AokiAoki is an Amerin wrer of Japane scent who is bt known for her llectns, cludg Seasonal Veloci (2012) and Why Dt Shall Never Settle upon This Soul (2015), and her novels, cludg He Mele a Hilo (2014) and Light om Unmon Stars (2021). Michael ChabonChabon has long had a gay followg due to his 1988 novel The Mysteri of Ptsburgh, which featur a protagonist who has both homosexual and heterosexual enunters.

Many of his later works feature gay characters, though their sexualy is ambient rather than LorLor’s wrg reflects her experience as a Black lbian and a mother. Christopher IsherwoodIsherwood, 1966Camera Prs/Pictorial ParaIsherwood’s 1964 novel A Sgle Man follows a gay man grievg for his lover over the urse of a day.

Armistead MpMp’s effervcent novels about gay life San Francis, startg wh Tal of the Cy (1978), brought to life a i foreign to much of the JordanJordan primarily wrote through the lens of bisexualy and racial jtice. "There was an urgency, a novelty to the whole thg," said the gay thor, who won the Man Booker Prize for The Le of Bety. Woods, a Lambda :Lerary Award nomee for her novel Thgs to Do When You're Goth the Country, says Baldw succeed at "blurrg the l of hero and villa and brgg the plexy of human nature to horrifyg foc." Maybe that's bee Baldw said the book isn't actually about beg gay.

CLASSIC GAY MALE LERATURE

SJ Sdu, thor of Marriage of a Thoand Li, lled , "One of the first Anglophone works to challenge the trope of the sad/suicidal gays who die at the end, this book gave a blueprt of what queer fictn uld look like."The Price of Salt's dizzygly erotilly charged prose also telegraphed her signature sense of an omo "menace" ( this se, the threat of beg ught or found out jt as the Red Sre h the Uned Stat). Forster (A Passage to India, A Room Wh a View, Howards End) wrote the benchmark gay novel Mrice cir 1913, was published posthumoly 1971.In a lh tale of manners, posn, and sire, the tular character meets and falls for his classmate Clive while at Oxford.

The pair embark on a two-year affair until Clive leav Mrice to marry a woman and live out his proscribed life as part of the land gentry, leavg Mrice shambl and seekg to cure his homosexualy.But Forster's novel do not end gay tragedy. The thor of Night Drop, Marshall Thornton lled the novel "the origal gay romance." A note found on Forster's mancript for Mrice, which was disvered tucked a drawer, read "Publishable, but worth ?" Ismail Merchant and Jam Ivory adapted the novel to the big screen a geo film starrg Jam Wilby, Hugh Grant, and Rupert Grav. Alan Hollghurst famoly qutned the future of the gay novel this year, which is strikg sce he's often viewed as helpg make queer books accsible to a mastream dience.

TOP 100 GAY NOVELS OF THE XXI CENTURY

Hollghurst set his pen on the sexual hypocrisi of homophobic policians, many of whom had their own discretns behd closed doors.

The queer g-of-age novel about Jim Willard and his search for love was the first novel om a rpected wrer (Gore Vidal) to speak directly and sympathetilly about the gay experience an era when homosexualy was still very much taboo. The book is remembered today for this legacy as well as for var them -- Hollywood's glass closet, beg gay the ary, the poisono effects of homophobia on society -- that still reverberate today.

GAY AUTHORS BOOKS

The only novel by the great Osr Wil may not be overtly gay, but there's plenty of gay subtext there for the reful rear - about as much gay subtext as a popular thor uld get away wh 1891.Dorian's iends Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton exprs tense admiratn for his bety, and passag that show Basil's feelgs for Dorian as more clearly homoerotic were excised by an edor, acrdg to Nicholas Frankel, who eded an edn prentg Wil's origal text 2011.Even the text as origally published has referenc to Dorian's rptn of not only young women but young men: "There was that wretched boy the Guards who mted suici. Cy of Night, a 1963 novel by John Rechy, is a semal piece of fictn that follows the life of a gay htler New York Cy, Los Angel, New Orleans, and San Francis.

"This epic chronicle of gay culture the Amerin sixti is as far-reachg as is important, givg a glimpse to inty and motive," affirmed SJ Sdu, the thor of Marriage of a Thoand Li. Gay lerature was forever changed the day Mary Ann Sgleton first met her transgenr landlady, Anna Madrigal, when she moved to San Francis's 28 Barbary Lane.

The 1982 book by Edmund Whe, which begs wh the first sexual enunter of a 15-year-old boy, is based on his own experienc g to terms wh his gay inty as a youth the Midwtern Uned Stat.

GAY BOOKS

Whe would later wre two addnal novels, The Betiful Room Is Empty (1988) and The Farewell Symphony (1997), which follow his gay protagonist to young adulthood. Integral to the lbian non (spe s beg nsired somewhat problematic) Brish wrer Radclyffe Hall's 1928 novel foc on Stephen Gordon, an upper-class lbian who dons men's clothg and be a novelist who eventually be a part of a lerary salon Paris at a time when there were no overt laws exprsly barrg homosexualy. Hall's novel was groundbreakg her troductn of the views of "sexologists" Richard von Krafft-Ebg and Havelock Ellis, who posed that homosexualy was an born, unalterable tra that was nsired a ngenal sexual versn that simply meant a "difference" and not a fect.

Wonrful book," gay refugee activist and lumnist Danny Ramadan rav about the global-md story.The book unpacks the emotnal life of a young girl displaced by the Nigerian civil war who begs a gut-wrenchg affair wh a fellow refugee. The girls are om different ethnic muni, forcg them to face not only the taboos of beg queer but the prejudic of survivg a natn that is eatg self alive."A great rellectn of everythg anyone would say Nigeria agast homosexualy g the fense of relign," explas David Nnanna Ikpo, the Nigerian thor of Fimisile Forever. Dalloway, a novel to which Cunngham pays homage; mid-20th-century Los Angel, hoewife Lra Brown, disntented wh her life, nonts her attractn to women; and 1990s New York Cy, Clarissa Vghan, who is lbian, plans a party for her bt iend, wrer Richard Brown, a gay man dyg of AIDS.Cunngham weav their stori together seamlsly and movgly a novel that is servedly regnized as a morn classic.The 2002 film adaptatn, wrten by David Hare and directed by Stephen Daldry, received several Osr nomatns, and Nile Kidman won Bt Actrs for her portrayal of Woolf.

In 2015, when the novel was published, reviewer and thor Garth Greenwell clared The Atlantic, "A Ltle Life: The Great Gay Novel Might Be Here." Hanya Yanagihara's story of four iends -- Ju, Mallm, JB, and Willem -- lasts over 700 pag as you wns the evolutn of iendship and love between the men who met llege.