Tony Duvert, the most infamous French gay writer (similar enfant terrible Pierre Guyotat was hetero) since Jean Genet is dead, says the The Paper Man.
Tony Duvert (1945 – 2008) was a French writer. He was the winner of the Prix Médicis, author of When Jonathan Died and contributor to French gay journal Gai pied.
In 2007 an English translation by Bruce Benderson Good Sex Illustrated (Le bon sexe illustré) was released by Semiotext(e).
Dennis Cooper described him as “A writer criminally undertranslated and consequently barely known in the primarily English-speaking areas of the world…. Duvert is one of the more significant and idiosyncratic contemporary French fiction writers. He’s also one of the most mysterious.”
sounds interesting. I hadn’t heard of him. 63 is very young to die
Apparently, he had been lying dead in an apartment for several weeks, a sad way to go.
He was a great writer and advocate of gay rights. GAY LITERATURE is, however, progressing a lot… in all languages. I just read, in Spanish, a very interesting and illustrating “testimonial novel”. Its title is YAGRUMA: AMORES PROHIBIDOS EN EPOCAS DE TIRANIA by Francisco Calderon Vallejo. In 854 pages, Calderon Vallejo tells us what it means to be born and live in a homophobic country… in this case Cuba… knowing from his very childhood that he is “different”. I highly recommend this book to all sensitive readers of gay literature. Duvert has died, but new authors that are exploring gay literature in a very successful way are leaving their mark. Calderon Vallejo is one of them. The ISBN for YAGRUMA is 978-0-939193-141. You can buy it through AMAZON or BARNES & NOBLE. Thank you.