Anna Livia (author)

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Anna Livia
queer linguistics
Children2

Anna Livia (born Anna Livia Julian Brawn; 13 November 1955 – 5 August 2007) was a lesbian feminist author and linguist, well known for her fiction and non-fiction regarding sexuality. From 1999 until shortly before the time of her death she was a member of staff at University of California, Berkeley.[1][2]

Personal life and education

Anna Livia was born on 13 November 1955, in

Anna Livia Plurabelle, the character from James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake.[3][4]

The family moved to Luanshya, Zambia in 1960, and then to Swaziland where she attended the Waterford Kamhlaba boarding school in Mbabane.[5] In 1970, they moved to the United Kingdom. Livia attended the Rosa Bassett School in South London for her primary and secondary education.

Livia graduated from the

minor in Italian.[6]
She also received a post-graduate certificate in education from UCL in 1981.

In 1999, she had twins with her partner Jeannie Witkin; they eventually split up but continued to co-parent their children. At the time of her death, Livia's partner was Patti Roberts.[5]

Career and writing

In the 1980s, she taught French and English at the

University of Avignon. She was a co-director of the Feminist Press in London from 1982–1989. From 1983–1990, she was an editor for Onlywomen Press
as well as their periodical, Gossip, from 1984–1988. From 1994–2002, she edited for the Lesbian Review of Books.

In 1995, she received her doctorate in French linguistics from the

Mills College.[7]

Relatively Norma (1982)

Livia's first novel is about Minnie, a lesbian from London, who travels to Australia to visit with and

lesbianism as the key to personal identity,"[8] and "humorously exposes the excuses heterosexuals employ to avoid confronting and discussing the subject of lesbianism."[8] Sally Munt, in her exploration of lesbian novels between 1979 and 1989, generally views the novel positively, but states that it is filled with "counter-cultural specificities of early 1980s London feminism,"[9] that border on the "self-referential claustrophobia which can sentence a text to obscurity outside its own sycophantic subculture."[9]

All of the male characters names are John, as a reference to clients of prostitutes. In an interview for The Leveller, Livia explains that "As a lesbian-feminist, I write in a lesbian-feminist context...The male characters are all called John...that's saying I think all men are Johns, which is true.... If other women want to read it, they'll have to imagine themselves into the lesbian feminist framework."[10]

Awards

Three of Livia's books were nominated for Lambda Literary Awards for Lesbian Fiction. Incidents Involving Mirth was nominated in 1990, Minimax in 1991, and Bruised Fruit in 1999.[11][12][13] She won a Vermont Booksellers Association Special Merit Award for translation.[3]

Selected works

Fiction

Novels

Collections

Non-fiction

Edited works

Books

Articles and essays

Translations

Further reading

  • Galst, Liz. "Searching for vampires in the netherworld: novelist Anna Livia has a penchant for supernatural lesbians."
    The Advocate
    , 3 Dec. 1991, p. 100.

References

  1. ^ Brown, Susan; Clements, Patricia; Grundy, Isobel (2018). "Anna Livia: Life & Writing". Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Cambridge University Press Online. Retrieved 18 February 2019.[permanent dead link]
  2. JSTOR 25796656
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 9781558623507
    .
  4. ISSN 0191-8699
    .
  5. ^ a b c "Obituary: Anna Livia". The Guardian. 26 September 2007. Retrieved 12 July 2010.
  6. ^ Carter, Katlyn (13 August 2007). "Lecturer Passes Away Unexpectedly". The Daily Californian. Archived from the original on 19 February 2019. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  7. ^ a b Kern, Richard (2007). "In Memoriam: Anna Livia Julian Brawn". University of California.
  8. ^
    ISBN 9781558623507
    .
  9. ^
    doi:10.1016/0277-5395(92)90106-6
    .
  10. ^ Interview with Anna Livia by Carley Tucker, "Write-on Dykes," The Leveller, December 1982, p. 33., as quoted in Levy, Bronwen (30 November 1983). "The Victim Fights Back: Women, Politics, Fiction, Crime". Hecate. 9 (1–2). St. Lucia: 175.
  11. Lambda Literary
    . 13 July 1991.
  12. Lambda Literary
    . 13 July 1992.
  13. Lambda Literary
    .

External links

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