There’s this thing called Quiz Bowl. Now, either you are super confused or you’re groaning really loudly. If you’re confused, Quiz Bowl is a Jeopardy-style team-based competition based on questions about categories such as literature, science, history, fine arts, and the like. If you’re groaning really loudly, yes, I am a nerd with no life that spends my free time studying for Quiz Bowl.
I focus my studying on literature and fine arts, and I have discovered so many classic novels written by the “greats” that consist of LGBT+ themes or characters.
For your fine reading, I have compiled a short list of them here.
1. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (1956): A critically acclaimed novel, even today, that brought discussions of sexuality to the forefront of American issues before the large-scale civil rights movements in the 1960s. An American man lives in Paris and struggles with his sexuality, especially when it comes to the Italian bartender Giovanni.
2. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890): Ah, yes, good old Oscar Wilde, the Irish author that was imprisoned for his sexuality. My personal favorite, The Picture of Dorian Gray was heavily censored for basically being “too gay,” as the characters explore sexual identity together in the philosophical and beautiful way that distinguishes Wilde’s writing from all the rest.
3. Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima (1949): A Japanese-American author who was truly avant-garde (to the point that he committed seppuku after a failed coup on the Japanese government). Confessions of a Mask is about a homosexual Japanese man living in Imperial Japan, struggling to simultaneously fit in society and survive.
4. Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928): What is a list of LGBT+ novels without Virginia Woolf? Orlando is the tale of a centuries old poet who changes sex throughout the years, meeting historical figures along the way.
5. The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith (1952): The novel that the 2015 film “Carol” was based on. Known as one of the only lesbian novel with a happy ending for decades, The Price of Salt defied stereotypes about lesbians.
Happy reading!
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