{"id":126106,"date":"2018-06-05T13:00:16","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T17:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=126106"},"modified":"2018-06-05T16:47:28","modified_gmt":"2018-06-05T20:47:28","slug":"redux-celebrating-pride-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/05\/redux-celebrating-pride-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Redux: Celebrating Pride Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week, the editors of<\/em>\u00a0The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. You can have these unlocked\u00a0pieces delivered straight to your inbox every\u00a0Sunday by\u00a0signing up for the Redux newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This week, to celebrate Pride Month, we bring you our 1988 Art of Fiction<\/a> interview with Edmund White,\u00a0Garth Greenwell\u2019s short story \u201cGospodar<\/a>,\u201d and Sappho\u2019s poem \u201cPrayer to Aphrodite<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edmund White, The Art of Fiction No. 105<\/a>
\nIssue no. 108 (Fall 1988)<\/em><\/p>\n

It was a political act for me to sign\u00a0The Joy of Gay Sex<\/em>\u00a0at the time. The publisher could not have cared less, but for me it was a big act of coming out. Charles Silverstein, my coauthor, and I were both aware that we would be addressing a lot of people and so in that sense we were spokesmen. We always pictured our ideal reader as someone who thought he was the only homosexual in the world.\u00a0States of Desire<\/em>\u00a0was an attempt to see the varieties of gay experience and also to suggest the enormous range of gay life to straight and gay people\u2014to show that gays aren\u2019t just hairdressers, they\u2019re also petroleum engineers and ranchers and short-order cooks. Once I\u2019d written\u00a0States of Desire<\/em>\u00a0I felt it was important to show one gay life in particular depth, rather than all of these lives in a shorthand version.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gospodar<\/a>
\nBy Garth Greenwell
\nIssue no. 209 (Summer 2014)<\/em><\/p>\n

It would have made me laugh in English, I think, the word he used for himself and that he insisted I use for him\u2014not that he had had to insist, of course, I would call him whatever he wanted. But in his language there was a resonance it would have lacked in my own, partaking both of the everyday (gospodine<\/em>, my students say in greeting, mister or sir) and of the scented chant of the cathedral. He was naked when he opened the door, backlit in the entrance of his apartment, or naked except for a series of leather straps that crossed his chest, serving no particular function; and this too might have made me laugh, were there not something in his manner that forbade it. He didn\u2019t greet me or invite me in, but turned his back without a word and walked to the center of what I took to be the apartment\u2019s main room. I didn\u2019t follow him, I waited at the edge of the light until he turned again and faced me, and then he did speak, telling me to undress in the hallway. Take off everything, he said, take off everything and then come in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Prayer to Aphrodite<\/a>
\nBy Sappho
\nIssue no. 88 (Summer 1983)<\/em><\/p>\n

Eternal Aphrodite, Zeus\u2019s daughter, throne
\nOf inlay, deviser of nets, I entreat you:
\nDo not let a yoke of grief and anguish weigh
\nDown my soul, Lady,<\/p>\n

But come to me now, as you did before
\nWhen, hearing my cries even at that distance
\nYou slammed the door of your father\u2019s house\u2014
\nGolden! and hastened \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you like what you read,\u00a0get a year of<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u2014four new issues, plus instant access to everything we\u2019ve ever published.\u00a0<\/em>Order now and you\u2019ll get a copy of our new\u00a0book,\u00a0<\/em>The Writer\u2019s Chapbook<\/a>,\u00a0for only ten dollars more.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every week, the editors of\u00a0The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. You can have these unlocked\u00a0pieces delivered straight to your inbox every\u00a0Sunday by\u00a0signing up for the Redux newsletter.     This week, to celebrate Pride Month, we bring you our 1988 Art of Fiction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31006],"tags":[2043,16289,34299,34300,4714],"class_list":["post-126106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-redux","tag-edmund-white","tag-garth-greenwell","tag-gospodar","tag-prayer-to-aphrodite","tag-sappho"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRedux: Celebrating Pride Month by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This week, in honor of Pride Month, we\u2019re giving you free access to work by Edmund White, Garth Greenwell, and Sappho.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/05\/redux-celebrating-pride-month\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Redux: Celebrating Pride Month by The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 5, 2018 \u2013 Every week, the editors of\u00a0The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. 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