80-521: Heavenly Breakfast: An Essay on the Winter of Love is a 1979 memoir by author, professor, and critic Samuel R. Delany . It details the time he spent living in a commune in New York City during the winter of 1967–1968, although altering some details. Heavenly Breakfast was also the name of the rock band that lived in the commune, which consisted of Steve Wiseman, Susan Schweers, Bert Lee (later of
160-537: A child, Delany envied children with nicknames. He took one for himself on the first day of a new summer camp, Camp Woodland, at the age of 11, by answering "Everybody calls me Chip!" when asked his name. Decades later, Frederik Pohl called him "a person who is never addressed by his friends as Sam, Samuel or any other variant of the name his parents gave him." Delany's name is one of the most misspelled in science fiction, having been misspelled on over 60 occasions in reviews. His publisher Doubleday misspelled his name on
240-503: A collection of critical essays that applied then-nascent literary theory to science fiction studies, he published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. He was also a visiting fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1977 and the University at Albany in 1978. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was Return to Nevèrÿon , a four-volume series of sword and sorcery tales. In 1987, Delany
320-499: A compassionate and humane Justice as well as a strong and passionate advocate for civil rights . In 1943, he hosted the formal opening of a Harlem campaign for a Colored Orphan Asylum in response to inadequate services supplied to black children by various religious organizations. Delany condemned religious groups, the United States military, and employers for their treatment of blacks, Jews, and Catholics. Delany also served on
400-590: A complaint of second-class treatment with Hartford's Commission on Civil Rights. The Statler Hotel had denied him a room although he had a reservation, because he was Black . The hotel staff offered him instead the use of a cot in a meeting room. In the Spring of 1956, the Government of Israel invited Delany to Tel Aviv as consultant to the Minister of Justice to study juvenile delinquency and assist in
480-414: A historic "not guilty" verdict from an all-white jury in segregated Alabama. After the trial, King wrote that the verdict was a "turning point" in his life and praised Delany and his other principal lawyer, William Robert Ming : "They brought to the courtroom wisdom, courage, and a highly developed art of advocacy; but most important, they brought the lawyers' indomitable determination to win. After
560-597: A label Delany himself uses. Novels such as Triton and the thousand-plus pages making up his four-volume Return to Nevèrÿon series explored in detail how sexuality and sexual attitudes relate to the socioeconomic underpinnings of a primitive – or, in Triton ' s case, futuristic – society. Even in works with no science fiction or fantasy content to speak of, such as Atlantis: Three Tales , The Mad Man , and Hogg , Delany pursued these questions by creating vivid pictures of New York and other American cities, now in
640-540: A memoir of his experiences with the band and communal life, which was eventually published as Heavenly Breakfast (1979). After he and Hacker briefly came together again, she moved to San Francisco. On New Year's Eve in 1968, Delany joined her; they then moved to London. In the summer of 1971 Delany returned to New York, where he lived at the Albert Hotel in Greenwich Village . In 1972, Delany directed
720-418: A physician. In 1991, Delany entered a committed, nonexclusive relationship with Dennis Rickett, previously a homeless book vendor. Their courtship is chronicled in the graphic memoir Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (1999), a collaboration with the writer and artist Mia Wolff . Delany is an atheist . Delany is a supporter of NAMBLA . Jewels, reflection, and refraction – not just
800-649: A range of differences across gender, sexuality, and ability. This proliferation of identities "takes place within a concerted effort to sustain a gendered social order and to deliver a stable reproductive futurity through language" in the Lo society's caging of the non-functional "kages" who are denied language and care. Both Nyong'o and Snorton connect Delany's work with Sylvia Wynter 's "genres of being human", underscoring Delany's sustained thematic engagement with difference, normativity, and their potential subversions or reifications, and placing him as an important interlocutor in
880-549: A rigorous line" a ring is nearly obsessively described at every twist and turn of the plot. Reflection and refraction in narrative are explored in Dhalgren and take center stage in his Return to Nevèrÿon series. Following the 1968 publication of Nova , there was not only a large gap in Delany's published work (after releasing eight novels and a novella between 1962 and 1968, his published output virtually stopped until 1973), there
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#1732783018117960-554: A short film entitled The Orchid (originally titled The Science Fiction Film in the Latter Twentieth Century ), produced by Barbara Wise. Shot in 16 mm with color and sound, the production also employed David Wise, Adolfas Mekas , and was scored by John Herbert McDowell. That November, Delany was a visiting writer at Wesleyan University 's Center for the Humanities. That year, Delany wrote two issues of
1040-479: A similar argument in his analysis of The Einstein Intersection . Citing Delany as a Queer theorist , Nyong'o highlights the novella's "extended study of the enduring power of norms, written during the precise moment – ' the 1960s ' – when antinormative, anti-systemic movements in the United States and worldwide were at their peak." Like Triton , The Einstein Intersection features characters that exist across
1120-489: A trial of three days, by the sheer strength of their legal arsenal, they overcame the most vicious Southern taboos festering in a virulent and inflamed atmosphere and they persuaded an all-white jury to accept the word of a Negro over that of white men." In his autobiography, Dr. King described the trial this way: "This case was tried before an all-white Southern jury . All of the State's witnesses were white. The judge and
1200-597: The American Civil War . The ancestry of Judge Delany's African American family has been accurately traced back to the mid 18th century with ties to St. Marys, Georgia , Fernandina Beach, Florida , and the Danville, Virginia , area. This historic account of an African American family is documented by Delany's two older sisters Sadie and Bessie Delany, in the autobiographical bestseller Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years Hubert T. Delany
1280-776: The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle in 1993; he has described this as the award of which he is proudest. After an invited stay at the artist's community Yaddo , he moved to the English Department of Temple University in January 2001, where he taught until his retirement in April 2015. In 2007, Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman , directed by Fred Barney Taylor . The film debuted on April 25 at
1360-573: The Central Park Sheiks ), and Delany. The book is one of several autobiographical works by Delany. Samuel R. Delany Samuel R. " Chip " Delany ( / d ə ˈ l eɪ n i / , 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
1440-752: The City College of New York in 1923. He received his law degree from New York University School of Law in 1926 and was a member of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity , the first Greek-letter organization to be founded by African-American men. Delany had a long career serving as both a justice in the New York City Domestic Relations Court as well as an attorney and adviser to civil rights activists Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , US Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. , and poet Langston Hughes . He also advised clients in
1520-594: The City College of New York . He worked his way through undergraduate college holding a job as a Red Cap railway Pullman porter at New York Penn Station . During his three years as a law student at NYU Law , Delany was also a teacher in Harlem elementary schools within the New York City Public School system. After receiving his law degree from New York University School of Law in 1926, Delany married Clarissa Scott Delany , active in
1600-675: The Harlem Renaissance . Scott, a poet , essayist and educator , was also a social worker with the National Urban League working to gather statistics for a "Study of Delinquent and Neglected Negro Children." Scott died from kidney disease in 1927, after they had been married a year. Delany later married again, to Willetta S. Mickey, in a ceremony performed by Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia . A native of Yonkers, New York , she had attended Howard University . The couple met while she served as Delany's secretary at
1680-760: The Harlem riot of 1935 , Delany and Mayor LaGuardia walked through the streets together to try to quiet things down. After the riot, Mayor LaGuardia appointed Delany and others, including historian E. Franklin Frazier , poet Countee Cullen , and labor leader A. Philip Randolph , to the Mayor's Commission on Conditions in Harlem. Their investigatory commission found that the riot was caused not by communist agitators, as some had speculated, but by frustration due to conditions of economic deprivation, racial discrimination, and an unresponsive city government. In 1933, Delany joined
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#17327830181171760-562: The House of Representatives for the 90th Congress . However, he was denied his seat when a majority of the House voted to exclude him with the adoption of House Resolution No 278. The House's action followed charges that Powell had misappropriated public funds and abused the process of the New York courts. Powell and a group of his constituents filed suit in the district court against Speaker of
1840-544: The House of Representatives . He won the Republican primary but lost the general election to Democrat Joseph A. Gavagan . Nonetheless, Delany gained the respect and friendship of Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia . Delany won 26,666 (37.9%) of the 70,000 votes cast. Mayor LaGuardia appointed Delany in 1934 as city tax commissioner. He later appointed Delany as a judge on the Court of Domestic Relations in 1942. During
1920-674: The Jazz Age , now in the first decade of the AIDS epidemic , New York private schools in the 1950s, as well as Greece and Europe in the 1960s, and – in Hogg – generalized small-town America. Phallos details the quest for happiness and security by a gay man from the island of Syracuse in the second-century reign of the Emperor Hadrian . Dark Reflections is a contemporary novel, dealing with themes of repression, old age, and
2000-670: The National Book Awards fiction category. His science fiction novel Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders was published by Magnus Books on his birthday in 2012. In 2013 he received the Brudner Prize from Yale University, for his contributions to gay literature. The same year, his comic book writer friend and planned literary executor, Robert Morales , died. He served as Critical Inquiry Visiting Professor at
2080-628: 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
2160-694: The University of Chicago during the winter quarter of 2014. In 2015, the year Delany retired from teaching at Temple University, the Caribbean Philosophical Association awarded him its Nicolás Guillén Lifetime Achievement Award. Since 2018, his archive has been housed at the Beinecke Library at Yale, where it is currently being organized. Till then, his papers were housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center . As
2240-711: The 2007 Tribeca Film Festival , and in 2008, it tied for Jury Award for Best Documentary at the International Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Also in 2007, Delany was the April "calendar boy" in the "Legends of the Village" calendar put out by Village Care of New York. In 2008, his novel Dark Reflections was a winner of the Stonewall Book Award . In 2010, Delany was one of five judges (along with Andrei Codrescu , Sabina Murray , Joanna Scott and Carolyn See ) for
2320-658: The Department of Surgery Jacobi Medical Center and North Central Bronx Hospital , as well as six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Many of Delany's papers, photographs and other materials can be found at the New York Public Library 's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, New York . More often than not, descendants of enslaved Africans are faced with many challenges when attempting to find ancestry prior to
2400-610: The Domestic Relations Court, Delany continued to practice along with attorneys Emile Zola Berman Esq, A. Harold Frost Esq. and George J. Mintzer Esq. The firm litigated within all of the courts of the State of New York, Federal District and Circuit Courts , and the Supreme Court of the United States . In 1955, during a stay in Hartford, Connecticut , to speak on juvenile delinquency, Judge Delany filed
2480-605: The House John McCormack and other House officials, alleging that the resolution to exclude him violated his constitutional right to serve so long as he met the specified age, citizenship, and residence requirements. The suit claimed that the House could exclude him only if it found he failed to meet the standing requirements of age, citizenship, and residence contained in Art. I, 2, of the Constitution - requirements
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2560-525: The House specifically found Powell met - and thus had excluded him unconstitutionally. The District Court dismissed petitioner's complaint "for want of jurisdiction of the subject matter." A panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal, although on somewhat differ 29 U.S. App. D.C. 354, 395 F.2d 577, affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded to the District Court for entry of a declaratory judgment and for further proceedings. Powell, who
2640-618: The National Advisory Board of the Commission on Law and Social Action (CLSA), the legal arm of the American Jewish Congress (AJC). Delany's advice on juvenile issues was "eagerly sought by many individuals and organizations." His many admirers and colleagues cited the understanding, fairness and delicacy with which he approached his cases. In 1946, alongside Justice Jane Bolin , Delany criticized
2720-686: The North: William Ming of Chicago and Hubert Delany from New York." Dr. King also noted: "I am frank to confess that on this occasion I learned that truth and conviction in the hands of a skillful advocate could make what started out as a bigoted, prejudiced jury, choose the path of justice. I cannot help but wish in my heart that the same kind of skill and devotion which Bill Ming and Hubert Delany accorded to me could be available to thousands of civil rights workers, to thousands of ordinary Negroes, who are every day facing prejudiced courtrooms." King's wife, Coretta Scott King , discussed
2800-508: The Tax Commission. Mrs. Delany was Founder and President of Adopt-A-Child , an interracial interface program of 14 public and private agencies which came together to find homes for Black, Hispanic and minority children needing adoption who, in her words, "were forced to spend their formative years in hospitals, shelters, institutions and boarding homes". She played a vital role in organizing forums and interstate conferences to discuss
2880-527: The United States at Fiedler's behest to teach at the University at Buffalo as Visiting Butler Professor of English for the spring 1975 semester. That summer he returned to New York City. Though he published two more major science fiction novels ( Triton and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand ) in the decade following Dhalgren , Delany began to work in fantasy and science fiction criticism. Beginning with The Jewel-Hinged Jaw (1977),
2960-569: The United States, and his wife Nannette James (Logan) Delany (1861–1956), an educator. Henry Beard Delany was born into slavery in St. Mary's, Georgia , but later became educated and advanced as a priest and the first African-American bishop in the Episcopal Church. Delany was born and raised on the campus of St. Augustine's School (now University) in Raleigh, North Carolina , where his father
3040-451: The ability to call witnesses and subpoena records. The commission proposed using state funds to help low-income families live in middle-income housing projects and privately owned apartments as a means of promoting integration. By proposing to subsidize low-income families, placing them in middle-income units built with state assistance, the Delany commission ultimately went far beyond the original Rockefeller plan. This early commission became
3120-584: The ages of 103 and 101. Throughout his early years, Delany believed he would follow in his father’s footsteps and become a clergyman within the Episcopal Church . Having grown up on the campus of historically black Saint Augustine's College where his parents taught, Delany had been shielded from the rigid system of racial segregation that dominated North Carolina in the early twentieth century. After finishing high school, Delany soon followed his older siblings to New York City, where he attended
3200-784: The aging. Delany was on the brief for the United States Supreme Court decision determining Congressman Adam Clayton Powell 's seating in the 90th Congress . Arthur Kinoy and Herbert O. Reid argued the cause for petitioners and with them on the brief were Robert L. Carter , Hubert T. Delany, William Kunstler , Frank D. Reeves , and Henry R. Williams . POWELL ET AL. v. McCORMACK , SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ET AL Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 89 S. Ct. 1944 (1969) No. 138 Argued: April 21, 1969, Decided: June 16, 1969 In November 1966, petitioner Adam Clayton Powell , an African American congressman from New York , had been duly elected to serve in
3280-501: The basis for characters Elsie and Corry in "Atlantis: Model 1924", the opening novella in his semi-autobiographical collection Atlantis: Three Tales .) Other notable family members include his aunt, Harlem Renaissance poet Clarissa Scott Delany , and his uncle, judge Hubert Thomas Delany . Delany attended the private Dalton School and, from 1951 through 1956, spent summers at Camp Woodland in Phoenicia, New York. He studied at
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3360-460: The best-selling nonfiction study Times Square Red, Times Square Blue . His science fiction novels Babel-17 and The Einstein Intersection were winners of the Nebula Award for 1966 and 1967, respectively. Founded in 1867 as Saint Augustine's Normal School, the institution first changed its name to Saint Augustine's School in 1893 and then to Saint Augustine's Junior College in 1919 when it began offering college-level coursework. Beginning in
3440-402: The comic book Wonder Woman , during a controversial period when the lead character abandoned her superpowers and became a secret agent. Delany scripted issues No. 202 and No. 203 of the series. He was initially supposed to write a six-issue story arc that would culminate in a battle over an abortion clinic, but the story arc was canceled after Gloria Steinem led a lobbying effort protesting
3520-461: The context of increasing technologically determined biocentrism , where bodies are shaped into categories-cum-cartographies of (human) life, as determined by socially agreed-upon and scientifically mapped genetic routes." Triton questions social and political imperatives towards anti-normativity insofar that these projects do not challenge but actually reify the constrictive categories of the human. In his book Afro-Fabulations , Tavia Nyong'o makes
3600-432: The couple settled in New York's East Village neighborhood at 629 East 5th Street. Hacker was working as an assistant editor at Ace Books , and her intervention helped Delany become a published science fiction author by the age of 20. He had finished writing that first novel ( The Jewels of Aptor , published in 1962) while 19, shortly after dropping out of the City College of New York after one semester. His next work
3680-469: The entertainment and sports industries, including famed opera singer Marian Anderson , singer and actor Paul Robeson , cartoonist E. Simms Campbell , bandleader Cab Calloway , and Major League Baseball color line breaker Jackie Robinson . Delany was the eighth of ten children born to the Rev. Henry Beard Delany (1858–1928), the first Black person elected Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Church in
3760-601: The fields of Queer theory and Black studies . The Mad Man , Phallos , and Dark Reflections are linked in minor ways. The beast mentioned at the beginning of The Mad Man graces the cover of Phallos . repr. 2021 in Out of the Ruins ed. by Preston Grassmann Hubert Thomas Delany Hubert Thomas Delany ( / d ə ˈ l eɪ n i / ; May 11, 1901 – December 28, 1990) was an American lawyer and civil rights pioneer, and politician. He served as Assistant U.S. Attorney ,
3840-787: The first African American appointed as Tax Commissioner of New York and one of the first African Americans appointed as a judge in New York City . Judge Delany was on the board of Directors for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Harlem YMCA , and became an active leader in the Harlem Renaissance . He also served as a Vice President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund . Delany graduated from
3920-669: The forerunner to creation of the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC) in 1968. The UDC was designed and given broad powers and resources to "improve the physical environment for low-and moderate-income families." Under Governor Rockefeller, and by 1973, the UDC (known today as the Empire State Development Corporation ) had successfully created over 88,000 units of housing for limited income families and
4000-936: The future rich heritage of the country." After graduation and passing the bar, from 1927 until 1933, Delany served as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York , appointed by Charles H. Tuttle , the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York . By 1934, he was the highest paid African-American federal appointee in the nation, and had won 493 of the 500 cases he had argued in U.S. District Court. In 1929, Delany ran for Congress, representing New York's "old" twenty-first district (today's (2015) New York's 13th congressional district , incorporating neighborhoods of Harlem , Inwood , Marble Hill , Spanish Harlem , Washington Heights , and Morningside Heights ) in
4080-431: The imagery but reflection and refraction of text and concepts – are also strong themes and metaphors in Delany's work. Titles such as The Jewels of Aptor , The Jewel-Hinged Jaw , "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones", Driftglass , and Dark Reflections , along with the optic chain of prisms, mirrors, and lenses worn by several characters in Dhalgren , are a few examples of this; as in "We (...) move on
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#17327830181174160-608: The inequities and unique issues related to their adoption. First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt made a visit to Harlem in 1954 to support the efforts of the growing Spence-Chapin Adoption Service. Judge Delany and his wife Willetta became the first African American family to host an incumbent First Lady , giving a reception from Mrs. Roosevelt at their home on 145th street and Riverside Drive . Mrs. Willetta Delany
4240-726: The law firm Mintzer, Todarelli and Kleid . He left in 1937 to establish his own law practice. Among his many clients was the classical contralto Marian Anderson . In 1939, after the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused to allow Anderson to perform in Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. , Delany introduced the resolution to the executive board of the NAACP that led to her performing instead on
4320-686: The merit-based Bronx High School of Science , during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun , the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Delany's first published short story, "Salt", appeared in Dynamo , Bronx Science's literary magazine, in 1960. Delany's father died from lung cancer in October 1960. The following year, in August 1961, Delany married poet/translator Marilyn Hacker , and
4400-400: The mid-1880s, the children of the Rev. and Mrs. Henry Beard Delany were all born, raised and educated on this campus. The Delanys witnessed a growing St. Augustine's become the first school of nursing in the state of North Carolina for African-Americans. Even today, the Delany family is described as "The First Family of St. Augustine's". The Delany family began its lengthy relationship with
4480-462: The now historically black college in 1881 when Henry Beard Delany , a former slave from Florida, arrived to study theology. The university further describes the family: "As the children of educators, the younger family members understood the importance of education to the future. Many became teachers committed to working with black students while others received advanced degrees after leaving St. Augustine's. Lemuel Delany, like his parents, remained at
4560-400: The practice of racial matching of probation officers with juvenile probationers. He was also an active member of the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York City. Delaney's critics, however, labeled him too "liberal." His briefs were often interpreted by his critics as "left-wing views". Some believed this was the "rationale" for Mayor Wagner's not reappointing Delany in 1955, although he
4640-444: The prosecutor were white. The courtroom was segregated. Passions were inflamed. Feelings ran high. The press and other communications media were hostile. Defeat seemed certain, and we in the freedom struggle braced ourselves for the inevitable. There were two men among us who persevered with the conviction that it was possible, in this context, to marshal facts and law and thus win vindication. These men were our lawyers-Negro lawyers from
4720-463: The removal of Wonder Woman's powers, a change predating Delany's involvement. Scholar Ann Matsuuchi concluded that Steinem's feedback was "conveniently used as an excuse" by DC management. From December 1972 to December 1974, Delany and Hacker lived in Marylebone , London. During this period, Delany began working with sexual themes in earnest and wrote two pornographic works, Equinox (originally published as The Tides of Lust ), and Hogg , which
4800-538: The reorganization of the Domestic Relations Courts of the State of Israel . In late 1956, he published an article discussing his consultancy and findings, entitled "Hubert Delany Reports on Israel", in The Crisis , the official NAACP publication. In late 1959, Martin Luther King Jr. was leaving Montgomery, Alabama , to return to his father's church, Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta , Georgia. Just prior to his departure, Alabama authorities charged King with failure to pay income tax. Leading King's legal team, Delany won
4880-403: The science fiction or fantasy genres for many years. He also published his novel The Mad Man and several essay collections, including Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), a pair of essays in which Delany drew on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men in New York City. Delany received
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#17327830181174960-504: The short stories " Aye, and Gomorrah " and "Dog in a Fisherman's Net". These works received critical praise: Algis Budrys called Delany a genius and poet and listed him with J. G. Ballard , Brian W. Aldiss , and Roger Zelazny as "an earthshaking new kind" of writer, while Judith Merril labeled him "TNT (The New Thing)". Babel-17 and The Einstein Intersection won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966 and 1967, respectively. "The Star-Pit", Delany's first professional short story,
5040-410: The steps of the Lincoln Memorial . As a result of the ensuing furor around the DAR denying Anderson performance space, thousands of DAR members, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt , resigned from the organization. On January 1, 1942, Delany was appointed as Justice of the Family Court by Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia and served until 1955. During his tenure, Judge Delany established himself as
5120-451: The title page of Driftglass , as did the organizers of Balticon in 1982 where Delany was guest of honor. Delany has identified as gay since adolescence. However, some observers have described him as bisexual due to his complicated 19-year marriage with poet/translator Marilyn Hacker , who was aware of Delany's orientation and has identified as a lesbian since their divorce. Delany and Hacker had one child in 1974, Iva Hacker-Delany, now
5200-494: The top two floors of a three-story private house between five- and six-story Harlem apartment buildings. Delany was born into an accomplished and ambitious family of the African American upper class . His grandfather, Henry Beard Delany (1858—1928), was born into slavery, but after emancipation became educated, a priest and the first black bishop of the Episcopal Church . Civil rights pioneers Sadie and Bessie Delany were among his paternal aunts. (He drew from their lives as
5280-405: The trial in her autobiography: "A southern jury of twelve white men had acquitted Martin. It was a triumph of justice, a miracle that restored your faith in human good." In May 1963, Governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller appointed Delany as Chairman of a powerful Temporary State Commission on Low-income Housing. The commission held all the authority of a full legislative public inquiry with
5360-474: The writer's unrewarded life. Writer and academic C. Riley Snorton has addressed Triton 's thematic engagement with gender, sexual, and racial difference and how their accommodations are instrumentalized in the state and institutional maintenance of social relations. Despite the novel's infinite number of subject positions and identities available through technological intervention, Snorton argues that Delany's proliferation of identities "take place within
5440-492: 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, he won the third J. Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award in Science Fiction from the academic Eaton Science Fiction Conference at UCR Libraries . The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 30th SFWA Grand Master in 2013, and in 2016, he
5520-456: Was a visiting fellow at Cornell University . The next year, he became a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst . He held this post for 11 years, before spending a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo . Delany's works in the 1990s included They Fly at Çiron , a re-written and expanded version of an unpublished short story he had written in 1962, and his last novel in either
5600-508: Was also a notable addition to the themes found in the stories published after that time. It was at this point that Delany began dealing with sexual themes to an extent rarely equaled in serious writing. Dhalgren and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand include several sexually explicit passages, and several of his books such as Equinox (originally published as The Tides of Lust , a title that Delany does not endorse), The Mad Man , Hogg and Phallos can be considered pornography,
5680-437: Was backed by several bar associations . The New York Times claimed that Mayor Robert F. Wagner declined to reappoint Delany because he held communist views; Delany believed the reason was his vocal and public stand on civil rights and against second-class citizenship for Black Americans . The NAACP and the National Urban League supported Judge Delany and protested the Mayor's decision. In 1956, after retiring from
5760-545: Was his last science fiction novel until Dhalgren in 1975. Weeks after Delany's return, he and Hacker began to live separately. Delany played and lived communally for five months on the Lower East Side with the Heavenly Breakfast, a folk-rock band whose other members were Susan Schweers, Steven Greenbaum (aka Wiseman), and Bert Lee (later a founding member of the Central Park Sheiks ). Delany wrote
5840-612: Was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame . Delany received the 2021 Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award . Samuel Ray Delany, Jr. was born on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem . His mother, Margaret Carey (Boyd) Delany (1916–1995), was a clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany Sr. (1906–1960), ran the Levy & Delany Funeral Home on 7th Avenue in Harlem, from 1938 until his death in 1960. The family lived in
5920-557: Was one of the earliest African-American women on the Board of Spence-Chapin Adoption Service, along with Mrs. Rachel Robinson , Mrs. Ralph Bunche , and Marian Anderson . In support of the agency's outreach efforts, Eleanor Roosevelt was the featured speaker for a Spence-Chapin conference. Mrs. Roosevelt was quoted in The New York Times as saying, "No matter what the color of their skin, all our children must be looked at as
6000-515: Was published by Frederick Pohl in the February 1967 issue of Worlds of Tomorrow , and he placed three more in other magazines that year. In 1968, he published four more short stories (including " Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones ", winner of the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1970) and Nova . This was published by Doubleday , marking Delany's departure from Ace; it
6080-467: Was subsequently re-elected to his seat in a special election, sought back pay along with recompense for other damages. On December 28, 1990, Delany died at the age of 89 in Manhattan where he lived the majority of his life. He was survived by a wife, Willetta Delany, a daughter, Dr. Madelon Delany Stent; professor of education at City College of New York and a son, Dr. Harry Mickey Delany; Chairman of
6160-482: Was the Vice-Principal and his mother, a teacher and administrator. Delany was a 1919 graduate of the school. His older sisters Sadie and Bessie Delany were civil rights pioneers in their own right, as a teacher and dentist in New York City, respectively. They co-authored the bestselling oral history , Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years , along with Amy Hill Hearth , and became famous at
6240-432: Was the eighth of ten children born to the Rev. Henry Beard Delany (1858–1928), the first Black person elected Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Church in the United States. His siblings were: American author, professor and literary critic Samuel R. Delany is the nephew of Hubert T. Delany. He is the author of numerous science fiction books including Dhalgren , Babel-17 , and Return to Nevèrÿon , as well as
6320-569: Was the trilogy The Fall of the Towers , followed by The Ballad of Beta-2 and Babel-17 ; he described his writing in this period, and his marriage to Hacker, in his memoir The Motion of Light in Water . In 1966, while Hacker remained in New York, Delany took a five-month trip to France, England, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. During this period, he wrote The Einstein Intersection . He drew on these locales in several works, including Nova and
6400-409: Was unpublishable at the time due to its transgressive content; it did not find print until 1995. Delany's eleventh novel, Dhalgren , was published in 1975 to both literary acclaim (from both inside and outside the science fiction community) and derision (mostly from within the community). It sold more than one million copies. After a lengthy exchange of letters with Leslie Fiedler , Delany returned to
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