Samuel r delany biography template

Samuel R. Delany
by
Sean Matharoo
  • LAST REVIEWED: 14 January 2022
  • LAST MODIFIED: 29 May 2019
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199827251-0198

  • Delany, Samuel R. The Jewels of Aptor. New York: Ace Books, 1962.

    Delany’s first novel, which he published at the age of twenty. It presents an antiwar narrative set in a postapocalyptic future past. It is noteworthy for establishing the author’s career-long interests in musicality and in subverting mythology, the quest narrative, natural language, racial inequality, and heteronormative gender roles. Additionally, it forthrightly represents homoeroticism, disability, and the figure of the outcast poet.

  • Delany, Samuel R. Babel-17. New York: Ace Books, 1966a.

    Ostensibly a space opera, this Nebula Award-winning novel is perhaps Delany’s most concentrated SF work about language. It pivots around polymath Rydra Wong, who is hired by a military organization to decipher the titular “Babel-17,” which is revealed to be a perception-altering language used by the enemy for sabotage. Unprecedented at the time of its publication for its affirmation of queer sex and polyamory.

  • Delany, Samuel R. Empire Star. New York: Ace Books, 1966b.

    An antislavery novella couched in a coming-of-age narrative about terraforming, it introduces his ideas on “simplexity,” “complexity,” and “multiplexity.” The author adopts a circular narrative structure that is meant to emphasize the importance of achieving a multiplex orientation toward truth whereby one omnisciently takes multiple perspectives into account. Such play with structure hints at the wildly innovative formal experiments to come in subsequent works.

  • Delany, Samuel R. The Einstein Intersection. New York: Ace Books, 1967.

    This Nebula Award-winning novel presents a postapocalyptic and posthuman tale based on the Orpheus myth. It is remarkable for its self-consciously playful approach to relativism and incompleteness, which takes the form

    • Samuel R. Delany

    American author, critic, and academic (born 1942)

    Samuel R. Delany

    Samuel R. Delany in 2022

    BornSamuel Ray Delany Jr.
    (1942-04-01) April 1, 1942 (age 82)
    Harlem, New York City, U.S.
    Pen nameK. Leslie Steiner, S. L. Kermit
    Occupation
    • Writer
    • editor
    • professor
    • literary critic
    EducationCity College of New York
    Period1962–present
    GenreScience fiction, fantasy, autobiography, creative nonfiction, erotic literature, literary criticism
    SubjectScience fiction, lesbian and gay studies, eroticism
    Literary movementNew Wave, Afrofuturism
    Notable worksBabel-17, Hogg, The Einstein Intersection, Nova, Dhalgren, The Motion of Light in Water, Dark Reflections
    Notable awards
    Spouse

    Marilyn Hacker

    ​

    ​

    (m. 1961; div. 1980)​
    PartnerDennis Rickett (1991–present)
    ChildrenIva Hacker-Delany
    samueldelany.com

    Samuel R. "Chip" Delany (, də-LAY-nee; born April 1, 1942) is an American writer and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism, and essays on science fiction, literature, sexuality, and society.

    His fiction includes Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection (winners of the Nebula Award for 1966 and 1967, respectively); Hogg, Nova, Dhalgren, the Return to Nevèrÿon series, and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. His nonfiction includes Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, About Writing, and eight books of essays. He has won four Nebula awards and two Hugo Awards, and he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2002.

    From January 1975 to May 2015, he was a professor of English, Comparative Literature, and/or Creative Writing at SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Albany, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Temple University.

    In 1997, he won the Kessler Award; further, in 2010

  • Samuel delany dune

    • Octavia (who grew up in Los Angeles and was discovered by white writer Harlan Ellison, and whom I taught for a week at Clarion) and I had very different childhoods. I grew up in Harlem, but I went to school at an overwhelmingly white private school (Dalton) and then at the equally overwhelmingly white Bronx High School of Science. Although I am not sure, I believe Harlan discovered Octavia in a black writers group and brought her on with him to Clarion, which is where I met her and taught her. She was extremely, almost pathologically, shy when I first met her, although clearly she was very smart. After the class, she went back to LA, and I went back to New York City, where I had been living in the East Village in a mostly white context. My science fiction tends to reflect what was around me at the time I was writing it, not my first ten years of home life, although that is reflected now and then in it as well.

    You’ve asked specifically how I interpret the term “Afrofuturism.” To me, it seemed kind of artificial and not very relevant for science fiction per se. Maybe you know my own essay “Racism and Science Fiction” (1998), which has been reprinted a number of times and more or less covers my own feelings. One of the things I said then in that piece, which some people have seen as prophetic, is that when the racial divide ceases to be a case of tokenism and actually reaches the proportions of, let’s say, 20%/80%, so that a successful black writer such as myself is not like a successful performer or sports star but represents instead a correlation between a group that traditionally has to work harder to be noticed at all and an otherwise minority, then you will see overt examples of racism raise their head; and we did a couple of years ago with the Sad Puppies phenomenon, which was actually talked about in newspapers and magazines such as The New Yorker. We’ve just had a black woman win the Hugo Award four times in a row, with a number of others, and historical

      Samuel r delany biography template

  • Samuel r delany net worth

    • Samuel R(ay) Delany Biography

    Nationality: American. Born: New York City, 1942. Education: The Dalton School and Bronx High School of Science, both New York; City College of New York (poetry editor, Promethean), 1960, 1962-63. Career: Butler Professor of English, State University of New York, Buffalo, 1975; Fellow, Center for Twentieth Century Studies, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 1977; since 1988 professor of comparative literature, University of Massachusetts. Awards: Nebula award, 1966, 1967 (twice), 1969; Hugo award, 1970.

    PUBLICATIONS

    Novels

    The Jewels of Aptor. New York, Ace, 1962; revised edition, NewYork, Ace, and London, Gollancz, 1968; London, Sphere, 1971; Boston, Gregg Press, 1977.

    The Fall of the Towers (revised texts). New York, Ace, 1970; London, Sphere, 1971.

    Captives of the Flame. New York, Ace, 1963; revised edition, asOut of the Dead City, London, Sphere, 1968; New York, Ace, 1977.

    The Towers of Toron. New York, Ace, 1964; revised edition, London, Sphere, 1968.

    City of a Thousand Suns. New York, Ace, 1965; revised edition, London, Sphere, 1969.

    The Ballad of Beta-2. New York, Ace, 1965.

    Babel-17. New York, Ace, 1966; London, Gollancz, 1967; revised edition, London, Sphere, 1969; Boston, Gregg Press, 1976.

    Empire Star. New York, Ace, 1966.

    The Einstein Intersection. New York, Ace, 1967; London, Gollancz, 1968.

    Nova. New York, Doubleday, 1968; London, Gollancz, 1969.

    The Tides of Lust. New York, Lancer, 1973; Manchester, Savoy, 1979.

    Dhalgren. New York, Bantam, 1975; revised edition, Boston, GreggPress, 1977.

    Triton. New York, Bantam, 1976; London, Corgi, 1977.

    The Ballad of Beta-2, and Empire Star. London, Sphere, 1977.

    Empire: A Visual Novel, illustrated by Howard V. Chaykin. NewYork, Berkley, 1978.

    Nevèrÿona; or, The Tale of Signs and Cities. New York, Bantam, 1983; London, Grafton, 1989.

    Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. New York, Bantam, 1984.