LGBTQ writing from ancient times to yesterday, selected by award-winning translator Frank Wynne. Since the dawn of literature, queer people have turned to writing to document their existence: to share great triumphs and deep despairs; to praise the virtues of their lover, extol their loneliness and proclaim their lust; to tell of their peculiarities and mundanities. For almost as long, they have been censored and bowdlerised, persecuted and relegated to the margins.
No longer. Alive in these pages, readers will hear Homer's Achilles beat his chest in grief for the loss of his Patroclus. They will see Alison Bechdel tiptoe then leap out of the closet and Juno Dawson come out again, but differently.
They will recognise queer saints and icons - Audre Lorde, Larry Kramer, Virginia Woolf - and meet young queer, trans and non-binary writers - Keith Jarrett, Zhang Yueran and Niviaq Korneliussen, among others. Frank Wynne allows their voices to ring out, unashamed and unabashed, in eighty pieces that straddle the spectrum of queer existence: short stories, poems, essays, extracts and scenes from countries the world over, from ancient times to yesterday.
No longer. Alive in these pages, readers will hear Homer's Achilles beat his chest in grief for the loss of his Patroclus. They will see Alison Bechdel tiptoe then leap out of the closet and Juno Dawson come out again, but differently.
They will recognise queer saints and icons - Audre Lorde, Larry Kramer, Virginia Woolf - and meet young queer, trans and non-binary writers - Keith Jarrett, Zhang Yueran and Niviaq Korneliussen, among others. Frank Wynne allows their voices to ring out, unashamed and unabashed, in eighty pieces that straddle the spectrum of queer existence: short stories, poems, essays, extracts and scenes from countries the world over, from ancient times to yesterday.