The Motion of Light in Water (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Samuel R. Delany
- First Published: 1988
- Type of Work: Autobiography
- Time of Work: 1957–1965
- Setting: New York City
- Principal Characters: Samuel Delany, Marilyn Hacker, Samuel R. Delany, Sr., Margaret Carey Boyd Delany, Hilda Hacker, W. H. Auden, Chester Kallman, Sonny
- Genres: Nonfiction, Autobiography
- Subjects: 1950’s, African Americans, 1960’s, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Gay men, Homosexuality or homosexuals, Sex or sexuality, Authors or writers, New York City, Middle classes, Marriage, Friendship, Poetry or poets, Writing, Genius, Truth, Death or dying, Business or business people, Science fiction
- Locales: New York, NY
Form and Content
In the introduction to The Motion of Light in Water, titled “Sentences,” Samuel Delany gives some sense of how the autobiography grew and developed. He writes how his thinking about two major events in his life precipitated writing about what can only be called a fragment of his adolescent and young adult years growing up in New York City and his emergence as a major writer of science fiction. His father died of lung cancer in 1958, when Delany was seventeen. As he thinks about the other events in his life during this time, he keeps reaching a...
[The entire page is 2868 words long]
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