Synopses & Reviews
Freedom in this Village is the first book to chart the course of black gay male literature over the past thirty-five years. Beginning at the birth of Gay Liberation with the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, editor and New York Times best-selling author E. Lynn Harris collects sixty entries, many never previously published. Fiction and poetry is matched in eloquence by nonfiction pieces, including essays and excerpts from memoirs, novels, biography, and autobiography. A new short story by E. Lynn Harris is featured, along with original work by twenty-five other authors. Among the roster of established writers are James Baldwin, Samuel R. Delany, Melvin Dixon, Peter J. Gomes, George C. Wolfe, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Hilton Als, Keith Boykin, Randall Kenan, Thomas Glave, James Earl Hardy, Brian Keith Jackson, Essex Hemphill (from whose poetry the title Freedom in this Village was borrowed), and the latest generation of writers who contribute fresh perspectives that choose to affirm rather than negate the interconnections between sex, race, and masculinity.
Synopsis
Freedom in This Village charts for the first time ever the innovative course of black gay male literature of the past 25 years. Starting in 1979 with the publication of James Baldwin's final novel, Just Above My Head, then on to the radical writings of the 1980s, the breakthrough successes of the 1990s, and up to today's new works, editor E. Lynn Harris collects 47 sensational stories, poems, novel excerpts, and essays. Authors featured include Samuel R. Delany, Essex Hemphill, Melvin Dixon, Marlon Riggs, Assotto Saint, Larry Duplechan, Reginald Shepherd, Carl Phillips, Keith Boykin, Randall Kenan, Thomas Glave, James Earl Hardy, Darieck Scott, Gary Fisher, Bruce Morrow, John Keene, G. Winston James, Bil Wright, Robert Reid Pharr, Brian Keith Jackson, as well as an array of exciting new and established writers.