cbf@allegra.UUCP (10/21/83)
Following are some excerpts from an article on page C32 of the Friday,
October 21 edition of the New York Times, about 80 year-old author
Christopher Isherwood. The article is titled "Isherwood Getting Literature
Prize" and is written by Nan Robertson.
Reprinted without permission.
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[...]
Today Mr. Isherwood is to receive the Common Wealth Award for Distinguished
Service in Literature from the Modern Language Association. Previous
recipients were Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Robert Penn Warren, Milan Kundera,
Nadine Gordimer and Wright Morris.
[...]
Other [badges of being different] were his homosexuality and his Hinduism,
which are central to his life and about which he has spoken and written
ever more frankly with the passage of the years. He said once that he had
been both evasive and disingenuous in dealing with his homosexuality in
"Goodbye to Berlin," published in the 1940's...
[...]
The author said that he "had kind of come out" in his 1964 novel, "A Single
Man." Then, in 1972 "Kathleen and Frank", a book of fact about his parents,
"I do lay it on the line rather clearly," he said. "I say I am me. It's a
sort of civil liberty." His laughter had an ironic tinge as he added:
"I'm a homosexual on principle." With "Christopher and His Kind," another
autobiographical volume in 1976, he focused even more sharply on this aspect
of his life.
Mr. Isherwood said he did not march or picket or protest loudly "about the
persecution of my minority." Instead, "all we can do for people is to
reassure them -- give them a little courage," he explained. "Just the act
of existing in a manner that is encouraging to others is great service.
Wouldn't you agree?" In the room as he spoke was his companion of 30 years,
the artist Don Bachardy...
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Charles Francois (decvax!allegra!cbf)