Recent queer biographies

[breathedout]

A little round-up of some interesting-looking queer bios or near-bios that came out this year and which I'd like to keep track of (several linked previously from Tumblr):

• Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, by Imani Perry: "Lorraine Hansberry, who died at thirty-four, was by all accounts a force of nature. Although best-known for her work A Raisin in the Sun, her short life was full of extraordinary experiences and achievements, and she had an unflinching commitment to social justice, which brought her under FBI surveillance when she was barely in her twenties. While her close friends and contemporaries, like James Baldwin and Nina Simone, have been rightly celebrated, her story has been diminished and relegated to one work—until now. [...] After the success of A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry used her prominence in myriad ways: challenging President Kennedy and his brother to take bolder stances on Civil Rights, supporting African anti-colonial leaders, and confronting the romantic racism of the Beat poets and Village hipsters. Though she married a man, she identified as lesbian and, risking censure and the prospect of being outed, joined one of the nation’s first lesbian organizations. Hansberry associated with many activists, writers, and musicians, including Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, among others."


• The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, by Jeffrey C. Stewart: Billed as "the definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance, based on the extant primary sources of his life and on interviews with those who knew him personally. He narrates the education of Locke, including his becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar and earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University, and his long career as a professor at Howard University. Locke also received a cosmopolitan, aesthetic education through his travels in continental Europe, where he came to appreciate the beauty of art and experienced a freedom unknown to him in the United States. And yet he became most closely associated with the flowering of Black culture in Jazz Age America and his promotion of the literary and artistic work of African Americans as the quintessential creations of American modernism. In the process he looked to Africa to find the proud and beautiful roots of the race. Shifting the discussion of race from politics and economics to the arts, he helped establish the idea that Black urban communities could be crucibles of creativity. Stewart explores both Locke's professional and private life, including his relationships with his mother, his friends, and his white patrons, as well as his lifelong search for love as a gay man."


• The Sour Fruit: Lord Byron, Love and Sex, by Vincenzo Patanè: "Byron’s emotional and erotic life, which he indulged with an unstoppable energy, is a key element in understanding his powerful and passionate personality, as well as the society of his day, which was scandalised by his behaviour even while being conquered by his extraordinary charm. The Sour Fruit. Lord Byron, Love & Sex looks at the poet’s now generally acknowledged bisexuality in all its aspects, from his fleeting liaisons to his love-affairs, female (his half-sister Augusta, Caroline Lamb and Teresa Guiccioli) and male (John Edleston, Nicolo Giraud and Loukas Chalandritsanos)."


• What's Left of the Night, by Ersi Sotiropoulos: Not a true bio, but a novelized version of a few nights in the life of a young Cavafy. "In June 1897, the young Constantine Cavafy arrives in Paris on the last stop of a long European tour, a trip that will deeply shape his future and push him toward his poetic inclination. With this lyrical novel, tinged with an hallucinatory eroticism that unfolds over three unforgettable days, celebrated Greek author Ersi Sotiropoulos depicts Cavafy in the midst of a journey of self-discovery across a continent on the brink of massive change. He is by turns exhilarated and tormented by his homosexuality; the Greek-Turkish War has ended in Greece’s defeat and humiliation; France is torn by the Dreyfus Affair, and Cavafy’s native Alexandria has surrendered to the indolent rhythms of the East. A stunning portrait of a budding author—before he became C.P. Cavafy, one of the 20th century’s greatest poets—that illuminates the complex relationship of art, life, and the erotic desires that trigger creativity."

(In other news, I need a pulpy reading icon.)

If anyone's read any of these, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Comments

[oulfis]

That Alain Locke biography sounds fascinating!! I once took the worst class on the Harlem Renaissance in the world, in which I managed not to discover that anybody was gay, and since then I've been playing catch-up.

[breathedout]

Yes I remember having a conversation with you about that class, which was INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING (the conversation, though no doubt also the class). Actually I sometimes think about it as I'm trying to fall asleep, and get all angry again that a CLASS ON THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE would systematically belittle the accomplishments of the major players of the Harlem Renaissance! Or at least the ones who weren't doing something comparable to White Modernism. Blech! Wasn't it also this class that more or less painted Modernism as adherence to A Canon of Great Men? I'm getting all het up about it now. Predictably.

Anyway, yes, maybe these Locke and Hansberry bios can be a corrective to that horrible-sounding experience.

[oulfis]

hahahaha, yes, you have remembered this class exactly!! The best works of the Harlem Renaissance were the ones that were most similar to white modernism, and the worst ones were the ones about RACE, UGH, because Art is RUINED by becoming Political. So naturally the only really good writer was Carl Van Vechten. I totally infuriated him by writing about Claude McKay's political sonnets.

[breathedout]

WHO LET THIS MAN TEACH THIS CLASS?!?!

flamesonthesidesofmyface.gif

[digsdigsdigs]

I haven't read any of these, but I was thinking about where I had been hearing about the Hansberry biography from and then realized Eve Ewing literally just interviewed Perry on her podcast Bughouse Square. I'm listening to it right now, it's really cool -- they start with a tape from the Studs Terkel archives of Terkel interviewing Hansberry about A Raisin in the Sun, and then the two of them talk.

[breathedout]

Oh wow, that's so cool! I will have to give it a listen!

[sea_changed]

The Hansberry and Locke bios were on my radar, but I'll have to check out the Byron and the Cavafy. The Byron sounds fascinating but potentially eyeroll-inducing (nothing specific about the summary, I just have a natural suspicion of any book about historical sex, especially historical queer sex), and while I know little of Cavafy I'm always interested in biographical novels; they so explicitly sit on that weird weird line between historical fact and fiction.

[breathedout]

I know what you mean about the dangers of reading people's commentary about historical queer sex. Although it's also one of my main interests, so I guess I'll keep throwing myself on that grenade, LOL.

And yes, I love the in-between-ness of biographical novels, when they're done well. It's a similar kind of trust in the author, I think, especially since when they're done poorly it's not pretty.