Samuel R Delany

[alephaleph]

Sur SFWA, un article sur le prix Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master 2013 qui a été remis cette année à l'auteur de Nova et de Désordres

Samuel R. Delany is the author of numerous books of science fiction, including Nova, Dhalgren, Stars in My Pockets Like Grains of Sand, and most recently Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders.

[jerome]

Un article sur Delany

Delany first appeared on the American literary scene in the ’60s as one of the brightest lights of what came to be called New Wave science fiction. The new generation of writers gathered under this label—very loosely affiliated in the US, more cohesively organized in England around New Worlds magazine under the editorship of Michael Moorcock—pursued literary experiments of a sort rarely found in the genre up to that point, placed human sciences like sociology and anthropology at the center of their speculations rather than the “hard” sciences, and engaged in a more direct and sustained way with the political and social issues of the day. British writers associated with the New Wave included J.G. Ballard, John Brunner, Barrington J. Bayley, and more; American writers, some of whom also published in New Worlds, included, Harlan Ellison, Thomas M. Disch, and Norman Spinrad, among others.

[jerome]

Une longue interview se trouve ici. Il y parle de son homosexualité et de la science fiction.

AF: I mean, were you aware of the possibilities that science fiction as a genre or a form might allow you to remain a moving target, might allow you a kind of open closet without having to announce it?

SD: I was out. No, I was known to be gay by then. I’ve actually asked people, I said “When did you first know that I was gay?” As soon as “Aye, and Gomorrah . . . ” was published, everybody knew I was gay. Why? Because, at that point, at that time in the 60s, if you mentioned homosexuality, it was assumed you were gay. It’s not that there was no representations; there were not gay characters as secondary characters until after Stonewall. To be known as gay, all you had to do was mention something gay, and it meant you had to be gay, so that even a story like “Aye, and Gomorrah . . . ” was kind of like announcing, “Hey, I’m gay!” And it worked. David Samuelson said that by the end of ’67 he was pretty sure that he had heard that I must be gay.

[jerome]

Delany sort un nouveau livre : Samuel Delany: The Atheist in the Attic

Plus d'infos

The Atheist in the Attic is the twentieth installment of the PM Press Outspoken Authors series. These small books—usually, but not exclusively, by science fiction or fantasy authors—combine new or reprinted fiction, an interview between the subject and series editor Terry Bisson, and a bibliography. What the publisher won’t tell you is this: there are really two kinds of books in the series. The first kind of book, like Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Wild Girls, Elizabeth Hand’s Fire., or John Crowley’s Totalitopia, could function as a primer on the author: they’re both representative and welcoming. The second sort of volume, for example Michael Moorcock’s Modem Times 2.0, seems to demand knowledge of and engagement with the writer concerned. The Atheist in the Attic ends up belonging to this second category.