Following the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 a Committee on Evil Literature was appointed in 1926, reporting to the Department of Justice. The Censorship of Publications Acts of 1929 followed and established the Censorship of Publications Board. Books could be banned that were considered to be indecent or obscene, as could newspapers whose content relied too much on crime, and works that promoted the "unnatural" prevention of conception or that advocated abortion.
Among the first 13 books to be banned (announced in the Iris Oifigiúil, in May 1930) was Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley, The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall and a myriad of books that wrote about sex in detail, or indeed any inclination towards homosexuality. Mercifully, things have changed since. Strict censorship has since ceased, and virtually all books banned have been unbanned––including John Broderick's The Pilgrimage, JP Donleavy’s The Ginger Man and Muriel Spark’s The Bachelors, all of which include queer sex references.
When it comes to what’s on the shelves today, LGBTQIA+ literature is a genre in itself. Many of the most compelling characters written in the 21st century have been queer, detailing the oftentimes mind-altering journey of coming to terms with your sexuality. Here, we’ve compiled a list of authors who have done just that––in exquisite detail.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Declared by some as "The Great Gay Novel", Yanagihara’s Booker Prize finalist A Little Life traces the lives of four young men, friends from the same college, who move to New York to chase dreams. They are all, improbably, incredibly successful: JB in the art world, Malcolm as a "starchitect", Willem as an actor and Jude as a litigator. The story narrows its focus on Jude: broken, full of secrets, self-harming, his body a web of scar tissue. It sounds tough because it is, but its beauty envelopes you as you fall deeper into Jude’s wounded animal-like character, and the reasons behind his derision towards sex. A Little Life makes for near-hypnotically compelling reading, a vivid, hyperreal portrait of human existence that demands intense emotional investment.
We Are Everywhere by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown
A rich and sweeping photographic history of the Queer Liberation Movement, from the creators and curators of the massively popular Instagram account @lgbt_history, released in time for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
A bold and controversial read when it was first published in 1956, Baldwin’s groundbreaking second novel tells of love and the fear of love, set among the bohemian bars and nightclubs of 1950s Paris. The book focuses on the events in the life of an American man living in Paris and his feelings and frustrations with his relationships with other men in his life, particularly an Italian bartender named Giovanni whom he meets at a Parisian gay bar.
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The Transgender Issue by Shon Faye
Transgender people have been reduced to an 'issue’, so says Shon Faye, who reclaims this idea to uncover the reality of what it means to live in today’s transphobic society. In doing so, she provides a compelling, wide-ranging analysis of trans lives from youth to old age, exploring work, family, housing, healthcare, the prison system and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities, in contemporary Britain and beyond.
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Stonewall by Martin Duberman
Pride originated as a protest, first and foremost. To learn the details of the days that changed the face of gay, bi, trans and lesbian life forever, there is nowhere more comprehensive than renowned historian and activist Duberman’s Stonewall. He tells the full story of this pivotal moment in history with riveting narrative skill, re-creating the riotous and revolutionary nights in vivid detail through the lives of six people who were drawn into the struggle for LGBTQ rights.
A Dutiful Boy by Mohsin Zaidi
A Guardian, GQ and New Statesman Best Book of the Year, Zaidi’s A Dutiful Boy tells his own story when it comes to accepting his homosexuality under the Islam faith. Told with exquisite candour and brutal realism, Zaidi’s memoir is unflinching, dignified and ultimately redemptive.
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Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
The essential writings of poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change.
Queer Love: An Anthology of Irish Fiction edited by Paul McVeigh
Featuring the works of best-selling writers such as Colm Tóibín, Emma Donoghue, Aosdána member Mary Dorcey and John Boyne along with published, emerging and new writers, including Neil Hegarty, Shannon Yee — who took legal action to bring same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland — and Emer Lyons, Queer Love is the brainchild of Cork-based press Southword Editions’ Pat Cotter and editor McVeigh whose anthology is just a small attempt at saying ‘here we are and here’s the way we love’.
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Listen: Queer Love - Paul McVeigh, Emma Donoghue and Neil Hegarty talk to RTÉ Arena
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
Booker Prize finalist Real Life is Taylor’s ode to the campus novel, imagined from the vantage point of a character who is usually sidelined. It shadows Wallace, a gay black student from a small town in Alabama, through a series of personal and professional conflicts that complicate the last weekend before his fourth year of graduate school. When the book opens, Wallace is pondering whether he ought to leave his university and the predominantly white, Midwestern town that houses it.
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Romance in Marseille by Claude McKay
Published posthumously in 2020, 87 years after it was written, McKay’s Romance in Marseille follows Lafala, a sailor born in West Africa (an unspecified region) who moves to the port of Marseille and gets fleeced by a Moroccan prostitute. It’s considered to be the pioneering novel of physical disability, transatlantic travel, and black international politics. A vital document of black modernism and one of the earliest overtly queer fictions in the African American tradition.
