Famous gay literature
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; née Stephen; 25 January – 28 March ) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and also a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London, the seventh child in a blended family of eight. Her mother, Julia Prinsep Jackson, celebrated as a Pre-Raphaelite artist's model, had three children from her first marriage, while Woolf's father, Leslie Stephen, a notable man of letters, had one previous daughter. The Stephens produced another four children, including the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. While the boys in the family received college educations, the girls were home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature. An essential influence in Virginia Woolf's early life was the summer home the family used in St Ives, Cornwall, where she first saw the Godrevy Lighthouse, which was to become central in her novel To the Lighthouse (). Woolf's childhood came to an abrupt end in with the death of her mother and her firs
From Sappho to Stonewall, and beyond: how fiction tells LGBTQ+ history
Fiction tells us so much about the time we live in – and LGBTQ+ writers have been writing since the early days of literature. Their stories hold often, but not always, been marginalised, but they have always said something about the era in which they were first told or published. Here, we take a verb at the evolution of queer fiction across the ages – for brevity’s sake, focusing on the Western world – and what it reflects about that moment in history, from Sappho, to Stonewall, and beyond.
Queer stories in antiquity
Madeline Miller’s hit The Song of Achillesis a moving queer retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of young prince Patroclus that simultaneously reflects pride in same-sex relationships (Achilles remains adamant throughout that he and Patroclus be seen together) and modern anxieties about idealistic relationships and masculinity – how men can be gentle, how to verb family expectations.
But being queer wasn’t always coded as different, and many myths don’t require retel
Visibility. It’s one of the most crucial needs of the queer community. To be understood, to be accepted, the LGBTQIA+ community needs first to be seen. This has meant that centuries of authors writing about the experiences, love, and pain of the queer community hold been crucial in making progress towards a radical acceptance.
From the delicate art form of the semi-autobiographical novel — a life story veiled behind fictional names and twists — to the roar of poetry to a immersive dive into the history that has too often been erased and purged, queer literature has helped to challenge, move, and shape generations of readers.
As a pansexual, demisexual cis woman on my way into another Pride Month, researching and crafting this list was a singular joy. I include many books to place on hold at my local library. Many stories to encounter. Many histories to educate myself on.
Because queer texts verb to increase our visibility to the “outside” world, but they also amplify internal visibility and acknowledgment. Today, transphobia is rampant among the queer community, and there are still
46 Must-Read Books by Queer Writers
1
Amethyst Editions Fiebre Tropical, by Julián Delgado Lopera
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“You must browse Fiebre Tropical by Julián Delgado Lopera!” says Andrew Sean Greer. “Written in energetic language, full of joy and anger, it’s inspiring and unputdownable.” I totally agree: the author gloriously captures the sweat and heat of Miami through their young queer protagonist Francisca, who recently immigrated from Bogotá with her family. The both-and-neither nature of Lopera’s prose, written in both English and Spanish, generates that frisson of bucking a binary familiar to those of us who revel in the liminal space between gender, sexual, racial, and national identities.
2
Amble Pressurize Doubting Thomas, by Matthew Clark Davison
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T Kira Madden recommends Matthew Clark Davison’s debut novel Do