DELANY, Samuel R.
The Motion of Light in Water

First published in 1988, The Motion of Light in Water. Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village opens with a fantastic photograph of Samuel R. Delany in 1960. The year after he and his wife, white poet Marilyn Hacker, moved to New York’s Lower East Side. New art, sexual practices, music, and political awareness burgeoned among the crowded streets and apartments. Beautifully, vividly, insightfully, Delany calls up this era of exploration as he details his developments as a black gay writer in an open marriage, with walk-ons by Bob Dylan, Stokely Carmichael, W. H. Auden, and James Baldwin. [publisher’s note] 

Published by University of Minnesota Press, 2004
Literature / Essays / Biographies / Counterculture / Queer Culture / Scenes