
Queer Autobibliography
Acts of Reading and Ways of Belonging
Umasankar Patra(Author)
Routledge (Publisher)
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 13. May 2026
Book
Hardback
192 pages
978-1-032-90910-3 (ISBN)
Description
Christopher Isherwood and Edmund White engage with autobiographical genres and negotiate their queer subjectivity in radical ways. Queer Autobibliography: Acts of Reading and Ways of Belonging argues that this negotiation takes place in and through books: books they write, publish, help to publish, read, borrow, lend, gift, and learn from. Books and reading become sites as well as strategies in their works to construct their queer politics, forge solidarities and curate queer bonds. This volume argues that books performing these dual roles of location as well as authority play out in the intertextual nature of their works: rereading of their own works and characters, redramatization of their lives in different idioms. It results in books being critical in evaluating society's homophobia as well as significant in terms of its materiality: (re)reading and (re)writing as political moves. Thus, in their autobiographical works, books become a means of affective community (or the lack of it), queer history of the Anglo-American world (including the oppression, shame and pride), literary history of the twentieth century (with the omission of queer desire), and mode of intergenerational friendships and camaraderie. Queer Autobibliography undertakes this novel mode of analysis by coupling queer theory and autobiography studies by mobilizing current scholarship on queer relationality, queer time and narrative theory that will delimit the precincts of autobiography studies and queer theory.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Postgraduate
Product notice
Laminated cover
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
Weight
405 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-032-90910-3 (9781032909103)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
05/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€0.00
Available for download

E-Book
05/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€0.00
Available for download
Person
Umasankar Patra is Assistant Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India.
Content
Preface
Chapter 1: Queer Autobibliography: Ethics of Lifewriting
Chapter 2: Pausing the Narrative: Queer Time in Prater Violet and My Lives
Chapter 3: Readers and Reading: Queer Sociality in Down There on a Visit and A Previous Life
Chapter 4: Aestheticization of Queer Desire: Queer Writing in Lost Years and The Loves of My Life
Chapter 5: "Perhaps because I lived in a World Made of Words": Autobibliography in Isherwood and White
Coda
Chapter 1: Queer Autobibliography: Ethics of Lifewriting
Chapter 2: Pausing the Narrative: Queer Time in Prater Violet and My Lives
Chapter 3: Readers and Reading: Queer Sociality in Down There on a Visit and A Previous Life
Chapter 4: Aestheticization of Queer Desire: Queer Writing in Lost Years and The Loves of My Life
Chapter 5: "Perhaps because I lived in a World Made of Words": Autobibliography in Isherwood and White
Coda