7 classic LGBT novels

LGBT classics have often been rejected by publishers. Homosexuality has been a taboo for a long time. One that is still broken today. The following is a list of novels with which you can start your literary journey.

in Venice by Thomas Mann

“Death in Venice” is the translation of the novella published in 1912 “Der Tod in Venedig” by Thomas Mann (06/06/1875 – 12/08/1955). It is the pinnacle of the 1929 Nobel Prize winner’s shortest work. The story is about an elderly writer, Gustav von Ashchenbach, suffering from writer’s block. On a whim, she visited cholera-stricken Venice. There he falls in love with the young woman. Tadzio. It’s still platonic. Drawing inspiration from the gay-tinged works of Plato and Nietzsche, Mann gives a philosophical description of this love. It ends with von Aschenbach’s death, as he too succumbs to cholera. He accepts it as a romantic destiny.

The story and characters are based on existing people. Thomas Mann places them in the summer of 1911, during a vacation with his wife (despite her homosexual tendencies) in Grand Hôtel des Bains at the Lido.

Several films have been based on this work, including Visconti’s film of the same name (1971). In 1973 Benjamin Britten edited it into an opera. In 1997 it was dramatized by Peter Wolf for the BBC. And in 2003 John Neumeier used it as the basis for a ballet piece.

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

David, a young American, drops out of college and moves to Paris. Through older gay knowledge, Jamesknown Johnan italian waiter Williamthe gay bar of . David and Giovanni become friends. David moves in with Giovanni, whose room is described in detail in the book. When David’s girlfriend Hello comes to Paris, David wants to prove his heterosexuality for himself. He has a perfunctory affair with a wife, Sue, whom he will never see again. When he returns home from this adventure, he meets a hysterical Giovanni who was fired from Guillaume’s bar. Hella then arrives and they leave Giovanni’s room for a few days. After taking Hella back to her hotel room, David states that Giovanni is going with Jacques. he knows yves. Giovanni seems to be no longer with Jacques and has the chance to go back to work at Guillaume’s bar. But instead, he kills William in a fit of rage. On the day of his execution, David and Hella find themselves in the south of France. Encouraged by the manager, they marry each other. When David meets a sailor, Hella discovers her homosexual nature that she had been suspecting all along. Hella returns to America and David feels guilty. He has mental images about execution and debt here.

Our Lady of Flowers by Jean Genet

This is the first novel by French writer Jean Genet (12/19/1910 – 4/15/1986). First published in 1943, it is largely the autobiography of a man wandering the Parisian underworld. The characters are described according to their representatives in real life, homosexuals who live on the fringes of society.

the story is about Divine, inhabiting an attic overlooking the Montmartre cemetery. She is she shares it with different lovers. The most important of them is a pimp named Dear Daintyfoot. One day, Darling brings home a young gangster and murderer. His name is Our Lady of the Flowers. Our Lady is finally arrested, tried and executed. The book was written in prison and commissioned from executed murderer Maurice Pilorge. Genet performs a revaluation of all securities. Betrayal is considered the highest moral value. Murder as an act of virtue and sexual attraction.

Memory of things past by Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust (10/7/1871 – 11/18/1922) was a French writer. This translated novel exists in seven parts that Proust has written between 1909 and 1920. In total it consists of 3,000 pages and more than 200 figures. It makes Proust one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. In his teens, Marcel Proust learned that he was gay. But most of his love affairs described of him are with women. Only in the fourth part “Sodom and Gomorrah” is his gay character reflected. But the narrator remains serious and describes the homosexual relationships around him. At the end of his life, Proust regrets not having been more open about it with his friend and colleague André Gide.

The novel is told in the first person and deals with his life. About his parents, about love, about the snobbery of fin de siècle French society and about his love for art and nature. At the center of the novel is the spiritual development of a main character as it goes through his life, evolving until the last part: “Time recovered”.

Typical is the Madeleine scene: baptizing Madeleine’s cupcake in flower tea activates her memory. This triggers a childhood memory of her when she spent a lot of time with her great aunt. Leonia.

Virginia Woolf’s Orlando

“Orlando” is a novel by Virginia Woolf (1/25/1882 – 3/28/1941). It was published in 1928 in dedicated to Vita Sackville-West. This is the race of the androgyne. orlando who lived from the end of the 16th century to the present day. Young Orlando is the queen’s favorite while she writes poetry. He is also a friend of the poet. Nicholas Greene. Under Charles II he becomes an ambassador with a ducal title. After a night with a dancer, he sleeps for a week and when he wakes up he discovers that his sex has changed. As a woman, she continues to write and meets Nicholas Greene again. This time as an influential Victorian critic who regulates the publication of Orlando’s secular poem which brings him two hundred guineas. Meanwhile, she is married to a sailor. Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine and has a baby. The novel continues to this day.

He shows different reactions if Orlando is male or female. In addition, it contains many well-observed historical and literary ideas in the years to which the novel refers.

Djuna Barnes Nightwood

The story begins in Europe with Robin, a kind of masochistic woman who only seeks to torture herself. She marries a false baron who only cares about her name and her aristocratic position. After the birth of her child, Robin realizes that this is not the life she really wants. She moves to America and meets a certain nora. They return together to Europe, to Paris, but their relationship does not hold. Robin is unfaithful to him, he has many adventures and in the end he starts a relationship with Jennyfour times widowed…

Robin’s persona is based entirely on the persona of Barnes’s mistress, a certain Thelma. Djuna Barnes (6/12/1892 – 6/18/1982) is ranked among the writers who became famous by writing only a few novels. “Nightwood” is an exceptional work and a masterpiece of lesbian literature. He was praised by several contemporaries (TS Eliot, Dylan Thomas…) for his passionate style and originality.

Herman Melville’s Billy Budd

“Billy Budd” is a classic novella by Herman Melville (1918 – 1891), who also wrote “Moby Dick.” It was published posthumously in 1924. The story is about a sailor on a British warship in the late 18th century. Is named billy budd and has a speech impediment. Captain I will see he likes a lot. Only the antagonist John Claggart he doesn’t like Billy. When she falsely accuses Billy of mutiny, Billy is furious. Due to his speech impediment that he cannot defend himself, Billy kills John under the sole witness of Captain Vere. Despite Vere’s love for the guy, he takes his now-obtained task as judge, prosecutor, and lawyer for Billy Budd very seriously. Conflicted between his sense of duty and his personal love for Billy, he chooses to strictly follow the law. He convinces the existing jury on other officers among the crew who agree to convict Billy. Billy is immediately suspended. Vere, dying in a sea battle, still has Billy mostly on his mind.