All articles tagged with #queer history
Alice Austen, a pioneering woman photographer of the Gilded Age, was also a queer woman whose relationship with Gertrude Tate spanned over 50 years. Her work captured the social and urban life of her era, and her personal life reflected the complexities of LGBTQ+ identity in a repressive society. Today, her legacy is celebrated at the Alice Austen House Museum, highlighting her contributions to photography and LGBTQ+ history.
Justin Torres, author of the acclaimed novel "We the Animals," has released his long-awaited follow-up, "Blackouts." The novel explores the intersections of fact and fiction, delving into queer history and the erasure of marginalized voices. Torres draws inspiration from a real book, "Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns," and incorporates redacted pages and altered images to emphasize historical erasures. "Blackouts" has been praised for its unique storytelling and has been named a finalist for the National Book Award. Torres, now more comfortable with his role as an authority on queer literature, is already looking ahead to his next project, aiming for something completely different from "Blackouts."
"Blackouts" by Justin Torres is a genre-defying novel that explores the themes of erasure, queer history, and identity. The story follows two unreliable queer Puerto Rican narrators, nene and Juan Gay, as they engage in a dialogue about a stolen sexology study entitled "Sex Variants." Through erasure poetry and a blend of fiction and nonfiction elements, Torres delves into the experience of not knowing and the weight of nothingness, highlighting the forgotten and obscured aspects of queer history. The novel challenges the idea of reality and invites readers to become part of a queer chain of storytelling.