Author: Samuel R. Delany
Profile: Samuel R. Delany is an American writer, literary critic, professor and editor. He is born in Harlem, New York, U.S. Samuel’s pen names are S.L. Kermit and K. Leslie Steiner. He completed his education at Dalton School and Bronx High School of Science. He spent summers in Phoenicia at Camp Woodland from 1951 to 1956.
He has been professor of English, Creative Writing and Comparative Literature from January 1975 till May 2015 at SUNY Albany, SUNY Buffalo and Temple University in Philadelphia until his retirement.
Delany lived with his family in a three story private home between 5 and 6 story Harlem apartment buildings. He begrudged other children and gave them nicknames besides which he gave himself a nickname ‘Chip’. In June 2011 at a reading at The Kitchen, he was identified since adolescence, as gay. At the age of 20 while he settled with his wife Marilyn Hacker in New York, he began writing his first novel, The Jewels of Aptor. From 1962 to 1968 he published nine well known science fiction novels. In 1988 he became a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, later as English professor at the University at Buffalo, University of Chicago, Temple University and then taught there up to his retirement in April 2015.
Writing style: Samuel R. Delany’s genre includes literary criticism, science fiction, memoir, society, literature, erotic literature, creative nonfiction, autobiography and fantasy. Refraction, reflection and Jewels – refraction and reflection of concepts and texts and not just the imagery are strong metaphors and themes used by Delany in his works.
Published Texts:
Fiction
Novels
1962 – The Jewels of Aptor
1963 – Captives of the Flame
1964 – The Towers of Toron
1965 – City of a Thousand Suns
1965 – The Ballad of Beta – 2
1966 – Empire Star
1966 – Babel 17
1967 – The Einstein Intersection
1968 – Nova
1973 – The Tides of Lust
1975 – Dhalgren
1976 – Triton
1978 – Empire
1984 – Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand
1993 – They Fly at Ciron
1994 – The Mad Man
1995 – Hoqq
2004 – Phallos
2007 – Dark Reflections
2012 – Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders
2018 – The Atheist in the Attic
2020 – Shoat Rumblin; His Sensations and Ideas
Short Stories
1967 – The Star Pit
1971 – Dog in a Fisherman’s Net
1967 – Corona
1967 – Aye and Gomorrah
1967 – Driftglass
1968 – We, in Some Strange Power’s Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line
1968 – Cage of Brass
1968 – High Weir
1968 – Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones
1970 – Night and the Loves of Joe Dicostanzo
1977 – Prismatica
1966 – Empire Star
1981 – Omegahelm
1981 – Ruins
1988 – Among the Blobs
1992 – The Desert of Time
1993 – Citre et Trans
1993 – Erik, Gwen and D.H. Lawrence’s Esthetic of Unrectified Feeling
1995 – Atlantis: Model 1924
2003 – Tapestry
2007 – In the Valley of the Nest of Spiders
2017 – The Hermit of Houston
2019 – To the Fordham
Awards and Acknowledgements:
1993 – Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement
1997 – Kessler Award
2002 – Inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame
2007 – Winner of the Stonewall Book Award
2008 – Jury Award for Best Documentary at the International Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
2007 – ‘Calendar boy’ in the ‘Legends of the Village’ calendar put out by Village Care of New York
2010 – Third J. Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award in Science
2010 – The Third J. Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award in Science Fiction from the academic Eaton Science Fiction Conference at UCR Libraries
2013 – The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 30th SFWA Grand Master
