A Classic Queer Reading List

As part of our series of Pride Month recommendations, we decided that it might be worth picking out a few classics from the canon of queer literature, that broke ground when they first came out and have influenced so many works after them. Below is a list of some of the most influential queer classics that we’ve come across.

The Well of Loneliness- Radclyffe Hall, 1928

One of the most important books to emerge from the western lesbian canon, Despite being controversial, British writer Radclyffe Hall’s 1928 novel focuses on an upper-class lesbian who wears men’s clothing and becomes a novelist, eventually inducted into a literary salon in Paris. Hall’s novel was groundbreaking in her introduction of the view posited that homosexuality was an inborn, unalterable trait that was simply a difference and not a defect. The novel stood trial on obscenity charges in both the United Kingdom, where it was deemed obscene and ordered destroyed, and the United States, where it was eventually banned.

Orlando- Virginia Woolf, 1928

Orlando, which Virginia Woolf wrote as a tribute to friend and lover Vita Sackville-West, is a study in gender fluidity across time and space. The eponymous protagonist starts as a young nobleman in Elizabethan England, finding favour with the queen, then falling out with her and indulging liberally in sex with a variety of women, while having an intense friendship with a male poet. 

Giovanni’s Room- James Baldwin, 1956

Giovanni’s Room is considered a masterpiece in queer literature seen by many modern masters as an antidote to shame. Shame is one of the centrepieces of the novel, that recounts an anguished love affair in Paris between the American narrator David, and Giovanni, an Italian bartender. The entire novel dissects shame, its roots, the myths that perpetuate it, the harm it can do, and its arbitrariness. While David sees shame as a natural conclusion to queerness, the novel also offers Giovanni, who seems immune to it. It’s this freedom that Giovanni represents that makes him such an iconic character.

A Single Man- Christopher Isherwood, 1964

A quietly devastating exploration of love, loneliness, and the weight of adult responsibilities, A Single Man might be one of Isherwood’s most beloved works. The novel follows the experience of an ageing college professor, George, crushed and depressed after losing his partner in a car accident, quietly planning his suicide while life gets in the way. While Tom Ford’s 2009 adaptation conveys the styles and anxieties of the novel, nothing quite matches the beautiful tone of despondency created by Isherwood

Rubyfruit Jungle- Rita Mae Brown, 1973

Many queer writers see Rita Mae Brown's 1973 coming-of-age book as an iconic work of LGBT literature. For teenagers exploring their sexuality back in the day, this book provided answers other works weren’t. The work is semi-autobiographical, which makes it all the more powerful, and follows Molly Bolt’s amorous adventures from childhood to adulthood, including a stint in swinging New York. Brown never shies away from describing Molly’s insatiable passion for women, in a way that’s both brazen and brave and its frank discussion of lesbian sexuality has paved the way for many stories about queer love.

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name- Aurde Lorde, 1982

This 1982 autobiography by iconic queer black poet Audre Lorde is an experience of intersectionality. Lorde classified it as a biomythography which combines history, myth and biography. In so many ways, it’s an impassioned love letter to the strength women have given her while growing up. The book also delves into the challenges of 1930s Harlem, fighting for dignity in the heat of Jim Crow, and finding a voice in the New York City lesbian bar scenes.

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit- Jeanette Winterson, 1985

Iconic writer Jeanette Winterson’s first novel, published in 1985, is a semi autobiographical coming-of-age story about a girl growing up in a Pentecostal family in England’s industrial Midlands region. Winterson decodes the oppressiveness of religious zealotry with the authority and insight of somebody who has first-hand experience of living in such an environment. Her portrayal of the young woman’s burgeoning lesbian sexuality– problematic in the Pentecostal world– is a searingly honest and evocative portrayal. 

The Hours- Michael Cunningham, 1988

Cunningham’s 1988 novel, winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, tells three parallel stories of queer characters in different eras and places. In 1920s England, Virginia Woolf struggles with depression while writing Mrs. Dalloway, to which Cunningham pays homage; in Los Angeles, housewife Laura Brown, discontented with her life, confronts her attraction to women; and in 1990s New York, Clarissa Vaughan plans a party for her best friend, writer Richard Brown, a gay man dying of AIDS. Cunningham weaves these three tales together seamlessly.