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

Contents:

• 25 MOST INFLUENTIAL GAY AUTHORS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT
• GAY AUTHORS BOOKS
• GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE
• GAY AUTHORS

25 MOST INFLUENTIAL GAY AUTHORS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

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. Forster (A Passage to India, A Room Wh a View, Howards End) wrote the benchmark gay novel Mrice cir 1913, was published posthumoly 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 Forster's novel do not end gay tragedy.

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. 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 '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 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.

"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. 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 AUTHORS BOOKS

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 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.

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. 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).

GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE

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. 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. 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 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 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. 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. Brorick’s novel is an important document that dramatis hidn gay liv the Dubl of 40 years CreweDebut novel The New Life was published this yearFrank Sargon’s Collected Stori, 1935-1963 (Pengu)Frank Sargon’s short stori are nversatnal.

GAY AUTHORS

”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 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.

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. I thk only a gay man would have had the patience to observe all the character typ, and renr them wh such unfettable, tty Atherton LEssayist and thor of Gay Bar: Why We Went Out, which won the Natnal Book Crics Circle award for tobgraphyReady to Catch Him Should He Fall by Neil Bartlett (Serpent’s Tail, available on worldoarebooks)So often, boy-meets-boy narrativ take place some remote manor or tent, as if romance only occurs far om the maddg gay crowd. ‘The Black Flamgo’ by Dean Atta, published by HachetteBt: Comg-of-age tale Ratg: 9/10Told verse, this betiful g-of-age story foc on Felix, a Jamain-Greek Cyprt teenager, g to terms wh his inty as a gay man.