Samuel delany etext the star pit full#
Samuel delany etext the star pit tv#

It is obvious he is very well read, with many of his novels using quotes from various poets, novelists and philosophers as opening epigraphs, and in some cases at the head of each chapter. He traveled a lot through Europe and Asia at a young age, both with and without his wife, with those experiences influencing several of his early stories, which were at least partially written, or conceived, during those trips.

Samuel delany etext the star pit full#

His higher education consisted of just one semester at the City College of New York, and yet he would later be awarded honorary degrees and has taught at various universities since 1975, with a full professorship at the University of Massachusetts Amherst beginning in 1988, later at the University of Buffalo, and most recently at Temple University, although he has retired from that position. Their marriage had always been open, and there were several periods when they lived apart, with both pursuing affairs with others of both genders. They separated in 1975 and divorced in 1980, and Hacker has since identified herself as lesbian, while Chip has had several long-lasting relationships with men. Delany has identified as gay since adolescence, and yet his complicated marriage with Hacker has caused some others to classify him as bi-sexual. They did have a daughter thirteen years later. Hacker was pregnant at the time, but later miscarried. If that is true, it surprises me that New York did not. I'm not sure if it's true or not, but Delany claims that when they married in 1961 they traveled to Michigan, which he says was the closest state that allowed interracial marriage. Chip attended the Dalton School, a prestigious prepatory academy on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and later the Bronx High School of Science, where on his first day he met his future wife, Marilyn Hacker. The family lived in the upper two floors of a three-story brownstone in the midst of taller apartment buildings. Their father, Chip's paternal grandfather, was a former slave who became the first black bishop in the Episcopal Church, and another of his sons was a judge and political activist. Sadie, the elder sister, was a teacher and Bessie was a dentist.

Samuel delany etext the star pit tv#

Two of his aunts were civil rights pioneers whose stories were told in the book Having Our Say: the Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, later adapted into a Broadway play and a TV movie. His father, Samuel Ray Delany Sr., managed a mortuary for twenty-two years until his death from cancer in 1960, and his mother was a clerk in the New York Public Library system. Chip's family was both financially well off and highly educated. I suppose when most people think of Harlem the first things that come to mind might be poverty and slums, but there are sections of the borough that have been both financially successful as well as creatively fruitful, and several in the Delany family had been in the thick of the Harlem Renaissance. He was born in Harlem, New York, not the most likely beginning for a future science fiction writer. When I mention those books here I'll link to the reviews, for others I'll link to. Since I won't be making many detailed comments on the books here, I invite you to check out the full reviews I've done so far. All of the reviews can be found HERE, and I'll add to that page when the time comes. There are a few others I will briefly mention, but it is likely I won't ever read them, the reasons for which I'll tell you later. He has written both science fiction and fantasy, as well as autobiographical memoirs and books on literary criticism and writing techniques. There are several more books I will eventually get around to, some of which I've read before, for others it will be the first time.

I have found his work just as fascinating, if not more so, this time around. If I hadn't read other things in between, along with generally being lazy, I would have added quite a few more to that list. I've been re-reading and reviewing some of his books over the past year, seven pages so far not counting this one, yet that barely scratches the surface. I'm not sure if anyone, even family, refer to him as Samuel or Sam or any other form of his given name. All of his friends and business associates call him 'Chip,' a nickname he created for himself one year at summer camp, simply because he was jealous of his friends who had cool nicknames. I am uploading this on April 1, 2015, which happens to be Delany's seventy-third birthday.