Ronald firbank alan hollinghurst biography

With the publication of The Swimming-Pool Library in 1988, British writer Alan Hollinghurst emerged as one of the most articulate voices in the expanding field of contemporary gay fiction.

The success of Hollinghurst's novel arose from its erotically charged depiction of contemporary gay life in London, as well as from its attempt to articulate that ever-elusive "gay sensibility" that so many gay writers claim to understand but can never, it seems, adequately describe.

Stylistically and thematically, Hollinghurst places his novel within a richly intertextual framework of other gay texts, characters, events, and literary traditions.

The novel is peopled with various gay historical characters, such as E.M. Forster and Ronald Firbank, and it draws eclectically upon various alternative forms of expression that have historically served the clandestine needs of the gay community, such as camp, pink prose, and classical mythology.

Throughout The Swimming-Po