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Hughes, LangstonLangston Hughes, whose literary legacy is enormous and varied, was closeted, but homosexuality was an important influence on his literary imagination, and many of his poems may be read as gay texts.
Beat GenerationThe writers of the Beat Generation, many of whom were gay or bisexual, endorsed gay rights as a part of their rebellion against inhibition and self-censorship.
Comedy of MannersThe Comedy of Manners, which flourished on the Restoration stage, has been particularly amenable to twentieth-century gay male writers as a vehicle for social satire in both dramatic and nondramatic works.
Sedaris, DavidUsing his and his family's experiences, particularly his childhood in Raleigh, North Carolina, and his own wacky perspective on life, David Sedaris has become a world-famous humorist, comedian, writer, playwright, and radio personality.
Novel: LesbianFrom the great modernist writers of the 1920s and 1930s to the pulp writers of the 1950s to the lesbian writers of today, lesbian novelists have had a powerful impact on the lesbian community.
From its beginning, the nineteenth century in England had a purposeful homosexual literature of considerable bulk, both male and female, though it was fettered by oppression.
Persecuted for his homosexuality by the Castro government he had once championed, Cuban novelist, essayist, and poet Reinaldo Arenas challenged all types of ideological dogmatism.
Baudelaire, CharlesLast updated on: 05/08/12
Maurice Sendak in a TateShots interview broadcast on YouTube.
Renowned children's author and artist Maurice Sendak died on May 8, 2012 as the result of complications from a stroke. In an obituary in the New York Times, Margalit Fox said he was "widely considered the most important children's book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche."
His most famous book was Where the Wild Things Are (1963), for which he received the Caldecott Medal from the American Library Association. As Linda Rapp explains in her glbtq.com entry on Sendak, "Where the Wild Things Are was a radical departure from the typical children's books of the time: it contained no moral lesson, and it dealt with how youngsters use fantasy to cope with and conquer their fears."
Sendak himself considered his best book to be Outside over There (1981), a dark tale of a baby who is kidnapped by goblins.
Sendak was also known for his set designs and costumes, especially for operas.
He collaborated with playwright Tony Kushner in creating an English adaptation of Hans Krása's Brundibár, a children's opera in Czech. Their work was first produced in 2003, and in the same year they published the story as a picture book, with text by Kushner and illustrations by Sendak.
In 1996, President Clinton presented Sendak the National Medal of the Arts.
Sendak came out publicly in a 2008 interview with the New York Times.
He was predeceased by his partner of 50 years, Dr. Eugene Glynn, a psychiatrist, author, and art critic who died in 2007.
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