Gender DynamiX - Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa

Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa

Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa Editor: Edwin Cameron and Mark Gevisser
Publisher: ROUTLEDGE
ISBN: 0415910617
Publishing Date: 1994
Pages: 376
Format: Softcover

An articulate and powerful testimony to the range of gay and lesbian experiences in South Africa, this book serves both as a document of lesbian and gay struggle, and a guide to the sexual politics coursing beneath the country's troubled passage to democracy.

"Defiant Desire" records the lives of lesbian and gay South Africans of all races, lived in the face of censure, denial and oppression, from a drag salon in Woodstock to a gay "shebeen" in kwaThema; from a church in a Pretoria nightclub to Johannesburg's lesbian and gay pride march; and from Afrikaans love poetry to the new activism. "Defiant Desire" brings together South Africa's most prominent gay and lesbian writers, activists and academics. The contributors set out to refute beliefs that homosexuality is a white, male or middle-class phenomenon. Their writing makes clear and vibrant the relationship between a growing lesbian and gay rights movement and the broader anti-apartheid struggle in a time of transition and upheaval South Africa, and challenges its people to build a new society that respects and cherishes all of its citizens. "Defiant Desire" is an articulate testimony to the range of gay and lesbian experiences in South Africa. It is both a document of lesbian and gay struggle, and an indispensable book for those interested in the sexual politics coursing beneath the country's troubled passage to democracy.

Buy for R287.14 at kalahari.net (Price as per August 2005)
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Reviews

"With moving first-person accounts and fine attention to historical detail, these essays show us a South Africa the world could never have known."

San Francisco Examiner

"...Defiant Desire needs to be read."

VLS

"Vividly capturing the diversity of lesbian and gay culture, Defiant Desire blends provocative testimony and nuanced analysis to raise important questions about race, sexuality, and gender ambiguity in South Africa." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Anne McClintock, Columbia University

Comments

Written by Leo on 2005-10-19 11:51:36

Haven't read the whole book, but found a fascinating excerpt from the Golden City Post and Drum Magazine - 1955/6 about the true life story of Gertie (Johnny) Williams.

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