David Leavitt, página 2 de 4

En 1997 David Leavitt y Mark Mitchell decidieron compÉfrse una vieja granja abandonada de los años cincuenta en una de las regiones más pobres y al mismo tiempo más hermosas del sur de la Toscana: Maremma. La restauracion de la casa sirve como pretexto a Leavitt y Mitchell para escribir un delicioso retrato del paisaje, la vida y las costumbres de este lugar de Italia. El relato alterna las bucolicas descripciones de la cosecha de la aceituna, la recogida del esparrago silvestre o la busqueda de muebles antiguos por la region, con las inevitables referencias a la corrupcion politica y a los problemas que les causa la burocracia italiana.Escrito desde la perspectiva de dos norteamericanos que intentan adaptarse al lento ritmo vital de este peculiar rincon de Europa, En Maremma es, sobre todo, un retrato de la Toscana desde dentro.

At the dawn of the Reagan era Martin Bauman, nineteen, clever, ambitious and insecure, is enrolled at a prestigious college with a hard-won place under the tutelage of the legendary and enigmatic Stanley Flint, a man who can make or break writing careers with the flick of a weary hand. Martin is poised on the threshold of the writing life, his twin desires to get into print and to find his way out of the closet. Moving through the century''s most licentious decade - the decade of cocaine, wild parties, huge advances and the tragic comedown of AIDS - Martin matures from brilliant student to apprentice in a Manhattan publishing house to fully fledged member of the New York literary brat pack. Yet despite his apparent success, his emotional and creative desires refuse, stubbornly, to be satisfied and his every achievement is haunted by the austere and troubling image of literary perfection, his elusive mentor, Stanley Flint. Subtle, erotic, honest and funny, David Leavitt''s deliciously sharp, multi-layered dissection of literary and sexual mores lays bare the life of the artist, in all his venal, envious, self-loathing, poignant glory.

Set against the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe, WHILE ENGLAND SLEEPS tells the story of the love affair between Brian Botsford, an upper-class young writer, and Edward Phelan, an idealistic, self-educated employee of the London Underground and a member of the Communist party. Though by far the better educated of the two Brian is also more callow, convinced that his homosexuality is something he will outgrow. Edward, on the other hand, possesses ''an unproblematic capacity to accept'' both Brian and the unorthodox nature of their love for each other - until one day, at the urging of his wealthy aunt Constance, Brian agrees to be set up with a ''suitable'' young woman...and soon enough Edward is pushed to the point of crisis. Fleeing, he volunteers to fight in Spain, where he ends up in prison. Brian, responsible for Edward''s flight, must pursue him across Europe, into the violent chaos of war.

''Florence is the only European city I can think of whose most famous citizens, at least in the last 150 years or so, have all been foreigners.'' Thus David Leavitt writes in this lively account of expatriate life in the city of the lily. His narrative begins by asking why Florence has always proven to be such a popular destination for suicides, then moves into an analysis of what makes the city, in Henry James''s words, such a ''delicate case.'' Why, for instance, has Florence always drawn so many English and American visitors. (At the turn of the century, the Anglo-American population numbered more than 30,000.) Why have men and women fleeing sex scandal traditionally settled here? What about Florence has made it so fascinating and so repellent - to artists and writers over the years? Moving between present and past, Leavitt''s narrative limns the history of the foreign colony from its origins in the middle of the nineteenth century until its demise under Mussolini, and considers the appeal of Florence to figures as diverse as Tchaikovsky, E. M.Forster, Ronald Firbank, Mary McCarthy, Mrs Keppel (mistress to King Edward VII) and Henry Labouchere, author of the Labouchere Amendment, under the provisions of which Oscar Wilde was convicted.

Denny Denham es la secretaria y amante de Ernest Wright, psicoanalista. Denny tambien es amiga de Nancy, la esposa de Ernest ?toca con ella el piano a cuatro manos?, resuelve todos los problemas cotidianos de la familia y es la confidente de los hijos, como Ben, un quinceañero insoportable herido por la literatura que quiere ser poeta. Y, sobre todo, es la narradora de la historia. El Dia de Accion de Gracias de 1969, Denny acude a la cena de los Wright, a la que asistiran la seductora Anne, anterior amiga intima de Nancy, con la que tocaba el piano antes de marcharse de Springwell, y Jonah Boyd, su marido, un escritor casi consagrado, alcoholico redimido que esta escribiendo su gran novela, esperada desde hace tiempo por su agente, y por la cual ha cobrado ya un anticipo. Y esa cena y los dias que vendran son el turbio corazon de la novela, el escenario del crimen. Aunque no haya un cadaver, y no se sepa hasta mucho tiempo despues quien fue la victima, y la causa y el origen de las heridas.

This is a complete collection of moving, elegant and often witty short stories from one of America''s most respected writers. Here, David Leavitt covers a range of challenging themes such as illness, grief and betrayal with his inimitable graceful touch. He takes the reader from Switzerland to San Francisco, and from a young man''s attempt to contract the HIV virus to American tourists being startled by the local conventions in Italy. Bringing together "Family Dancing" (a finalist for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Prize), "A Place I''ve Never Been" and "The Marble Quilt", this edition affirms David Leavitt''s mastery of the short-story form.

The diversity - and unity - of gay love and experience in the twentieth century is celebrated in this acclaimed anthology, which includes twenty-one stories from the original collection, published in 1994, together with fifteen new stories. The texts range from the tender unarticulated longings of D.H. Lawrence's A Poem of Friendship to the explicit sexual. Writers include both men and women, gay and straight, amongst them: John Updike, Edna O'Brien, E.M. Forster, Annie Proulx, William Trevor and Edmund White.

"Arkansas" reúne tres esplendidas variaciones sobre el universo de la seducción. El propio escritor es el protagonista del primero, El artista de los trabajos universitarios, en el que, para huir de la sonada polemica provocada por la acusacion del poeta ingles Stephen Spender de haberse apropiado de su vida en su ultima novela, se refugia en casa de su padre. Despues de reflexionar un poco, decide volver a escribir y frecuenta la biblioteca universitaria, en la que conoce a un atractivo joven al que le propone un singular trueque: sexo a cambio de redactarle un trabajo de literatura... En Las bodas de madera reaparecen dos viejos conocidos de los lectores de Leavitt, Celia y Nathan, que se reencuentran en la Toscana, donde tiene lugar un apasionado juego de seducciones a tres bandas y sin tapujos morales. Por ultimo, La calle Saturn es una nueva incursion en los vericuetos del deseo, en este caso de tintes mas dramaticos: un escritor neoyorquino que pasa una temporada en Los Çngeles se ofrece como voluntario para repartir comida a enfermos de sida y se enamora de una de las personas a las que ayuda. Estos tres relatos son una perfecta muestra de la madurez creativa de David Leavitt, de su inteligente, comprometida y en ocasiones divertida vision del mundo gay, abordado de