David Leavitt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| David Leavitt | |
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| Born | June 21, 1961 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Usa |
| Occupation | short story writer, novelist, essayist, professor |
| Nationality | American |
| Literary movement | Minimalism, Gay Literature |
| Notable work(s) | Family Dancing, The Lost Language of Cranes, While England Sleeps |
| Notable award(s) | finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Prize and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award 1983 |
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David Leavitt (born June 23, 1961) is an American novelist.
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[edit] Biography
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Leavitt is a graduate of Yale University[1] and a professor at the University of Florida. He has also taught at Princeton.
He is the author of Family Dancing, Equal Affections, The Page Turner, Martin Bauman, or A Sure Thing, The Lost Language of Cranes, While England Sleeps (for the publication of which he was sued by Stephen Spender), The Body of Jonah Boyd, and numerous short stories. His most recent novel is The Indian Clerk.
At the University of Florida he is the co-director of the creative writing program. He is also the editor of "Subtropics" magazine, The University of Florida's literary review. Leavitt, who is openly gay,[2] has frequently explored gay issues in his work.[1] He lives between Florida and Tuscany (Italy), where he had many of his books translated.
In 1991, Leavitt was sued by poet Stephen Spender, who claimed Leavitt had plagiarized his memoir in "While England Slept."[citation needed] Subsequently, Viking Press, Leavitt's publishers, agreed to delete a passage that closely paralleled Spender's. The publishers also agreed never to publish the manuscript that had become the subject of the charge of plagiarism. In addition, Spender claimed that not only had Leavitt plagiarized his writing, but that he had fictionalized his life, especially by adding graphic, even scatological fantasies attributed to the character modeled after Spender.[citation needed] "If he wants to write about sexual fantasies, he should write about his own," the poet said.[citation needed] Passages in Leavitt's novel, before being "revised," closely paralleled passages in Spender's memoir, at times phrase by phrase.[citation needed]
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Novels
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[edit] Collections
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[edit] Nonfiction
- Italian Pleasures (1996) (with Mark Mitchell)
- Pages Passed from Hand to Hand: The Hidden Tradition of Homosexual Literature in English from 1748 to 1914 (1997) (editor, with Mark Mitchell)
- In Maremma: Life and a House in Southern Tuscany (2001) (with Mark Mitchell)
- Florence, A Delicate Case (2003)
- The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer (2005)
[edit] References
- ^ a b Lawson, Don S. (2007-10-11). Leavitt, David. glbtq.com. Retrieved on 2008-01-08.
- ^ Pela, Robert L. (1997-04-01), “Uncensorable Leavitt - gay author David Leavitt - Interview”, The Advocate, <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_n730/ai_20139159>. Retrieved on 8 January 2008
[edit] External links
- David Leavitt's website at the University of Florida
- 1989 Audio Interview with David Leavitt by Don Swaim at Wired for Books.
- BBC Radio 4 Interview about The Body of Jonah Boyd
- Econoculture Interview, February 2 2006 by Paul Morton
- Recorded keystrokes of Leavitt writing a poem on surprise topic with 15 minute time limit
- Website for Subtropics Magazine
- Interview with Identity Theory
