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The Publishing Triangle, an
organization of gays in publishing, has compiled the 100 greatest gay novels of
all time, with Thomas Mann's Death in Venice coming in at the top of the list.
The short novel about a
writer's infatuation with a teenager was followed by James Baldwin's Giovanni's
Room, the story of an American expatriate's struggle with his sexual identity,
and Our Lady of the Flowers, Jean Genet's literary fantasy about a male
prostitute in the Parisian underworld.
Two other French novels
finished fourth and fifth: Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past and Andre
Gide's The Immoralist.
Titles could make the list
if the author was gay, if the book had gay subject matter, or apparently, if the
text was simply open to gay interpretation.The judges disagreed, for instance,
over the inclusion of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.
The greatest gay
novels 1 to 20
Click on a Book
Title (in orange) for more information on the book - including a picture of its
cover - You will also be able to buy the book online
| 1 |
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Death
in Venice, Thomas Mann.
short novel about a writer's infatuation with a
teenager
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| 2 |
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Giovanni's
Room, James Baldwin.
First published in 1957, this book attempts to
tackle the conflict between homosexual and heterosexual love. It tells
of David, a young man awakening to his true homosexual nature, through
a relationship with a barman named Giovanni, as he awaits his
fiancee's arrival from Spain.
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| 3 |
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Our
Lady of the Flowers,
Jean Genet.
literary fantasy about a male prostitute in the
Parisian underworld.
|
| 4 |
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Remembrance
of Things Past, Marcel Proust. |
| 5 |
 |
The
Immoralist, Andre Gide.
Gide's novel examines the inevitable conflicts
that arise when a pleasure seeker challenges conventional society and,
without moralizing, raises complex issues involving the extent of
personal responsibility.
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| 6 |
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Orlando,
Virginia Woolf
A biographical fantasy, which traces the history
of the youthful, beautiful and aristocratic Orlando through four
centuries in both male and female manifestations. Price 80p
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| 7 |
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The
Well of Loneliness,
Radclyffe Hall.
Sir Philip and Lady Gordon long for an heir.
Their only child is a girl but they call her Stephen. From a
difficult, lonely childhood, through a tormented adolescence, Stephen
Gordon reaches maturity and falls in love with another woman.
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| 8 |
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Kiss
of the Spider Woman,
Manuel Puig. |
| 9 |
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The
Memoirs of Hadrian,
Marguerite Yourcenar. |
| 10 |
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Zami,
Audre Lorde. |
| 11 |
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The
Picture of Dorian Gray,
Oscar Wilde. |
| 12 |
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Nightwood,
Djuna Barnes. |
| 13 |
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Billy
Budd, Herman
Melville. |
| 14 |
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A
Boy's Own Story,
Edmund White. |
| 15 |
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Dancer
From the Dance,
Andrew Holleran. |
| 16 |
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Maurice,
E.M. Forster. |
| 17 |
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The
City and the Pillar,
Gore Vidal.
In their teens, Jim Willard and Bob Ford share a
moment of sexual intimacy and Jim spends years searching for the
recreation of that moment. When the opportunity occurs, it explodes
with violence and pain. This was one of the first pieces of explicitly
gay fiction
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| 18 |
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Rubyfruit
Jungle, Rita Mae
Brown. |
| 19 |
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Brideshead
Revisited, Evelyn
Waugh. |
| 20 |
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Confessions
of a Mask, Yukio
Mishima. |
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