Items

• Querelle of Brest
  Set in the French port town of Brest, bisexual anti-hero Georges Querelle is a young sailor lusted after by his superior officer, by a local corrupt policeman and by the madam of a brothel. But Querelle is also a thief and a serial killer. ‘Querelle of Brest’ by Jean Genet (1910-1986) was first published anonymously in 1947 in a limited edition and illustrated with a series of homoerotic and sexually explicit line drawings by Jean Cocteau. It was prosecuted in France on grounds of indecency in 1954 but cleared in 1956. This edition from 1966 marks its first translation into English by Gregory Streatham. Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s last film, ‘Querelle’ (1982), is an adaptation of the novel. Genet himself was dishonorably discharged from the French Foreign Legion and imprisoned for committing ‘lewd’ (homosexual) acts.
• The Paris diary of Ned Rorem
  Ned Rorem (1923-2022) was an American composer of modern classical music, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1976 and a Grammy in 1989. Rorem was also gay, and documented his life in a series of diaries which began with his ‘Paris Diary’, covering the early 1950s when he was in his late twenties. Famed not only for his musical talent but also his good looks, Rorem was a dedicated socialite who gained entry to the Parisian artistic scene under the mentorship of Vicomtesse Marie-Laure de Noailles. This selection of his diaries shows the extent of Rorem’s connections not only via his writing but also through the inclusion of photographs taken of him by artists such as Man Ray and a portrait illustration by Jean Cocteau.