Wendy Moffat: E.M. Forster

A New Life. UK 2011, 408 pp. illustrated, Pb, € 15.90
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With the posthumous publication of his long-suppressed novel »Maurice« in 1970, E.M. Forster came out as a homosexual - though the revelation made barely a ripple in his literary reputation. Forster's homosexuality was the central fact of his life. Between Oscar Wilde's imprisonment and the Stonewall riots, Forster led a long, strange, and imaginative life as a gay man. He preserved a vast archive of his private life - a history of gay experience he believed would find its audience in a happier time. Moffat's decade of detective work - including first-time interviews with Forster's friends - has resulted in a biography to integrate Forster's public and private lives - seeing his life through the lens of his sexuality (offering a prophetic vision of gay intimacy) and revealing his astuteness as a social critic.

Christoph Huber, Olaf Möller: Peter Kern

TaschenKino 4. Ö 2011, 207 S. mit zahlreichen Abb. + DVD, Broschur, € 14.90
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Peter Kern - Schauspieler, Regisseur, Autor und Produzent - ist einer der letzten Ungebrochenen der Filmbranche. Sein Werk hat etwas Solitäres, Visionäres, Nichtkommerzielles. Als Persönlichkeit des öffentlichen Lebens ist er einer der wenigen verbliebenen Widerständler, Polemiker, Nein-Sager - alles Andere als ein lebender Kompromiss. Er legt den Finger in die österreichischen Wunden: sei's, wenn's um ein Mahnmal für die vom Naziterror verfolgten Homosexuellen in Wien geht oder wenn es um die Wiederkehr von Rassismus und braunem Totalitarismus in neuem Kostüm geht - Peter Kern kann nicht schweigen. Und eines seiner Sprachrohre ist die Filmkunst, was so kontroversielle Filme »Haider lebt - 1. April 2021« (2002) oder »Blutsfreundschaft« (2009) beweisen.

Jane Pritchard (ed.): Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballet Russes, 1909-1929

UK/USA 2010, 240 pp. illustrated, hardbound, € 44.95
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Serge Diaghilev was an extraordinarily gifted impresario, curator, director and animator of the arts. He was perfectly at home driving the wave of creative energy that pushed theatrical performance to the cutting edge of cultural activity in the early 20th century and perfectly placed to export Russian culture to a thrilled and expectant Western Europe. Active in Europe and America between 1909 and 1929, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company expanded the frontiers of theatre specifically, and art more generally. Many of its acclaimed productions were true collaborations, examples of »Gesamtkunstwerk« that continue to capture the imagination of audiences a century later. A roll call of his collaborators, friends and contacts bears witness to his influence on modernism: Picasso, Stravinsky, Nijinsky, Bakst, Matisse, Chanel, Prokofiev and Cocteau - all worked with Diaghilev, and their work is discussed and illustrated here.

Eric Walz: Schwule Schurken

D 2011 (Neuaufl.), 240 S., Broschur, € 14.39
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Männerschwarm
Schwulsein ist schick, inzwischen nützt das Outing mitunter sogar der Karriere. Zeit für ein bisschen Nestbeschmutzung! Eric Walz stellt den gern zitierten Lichtgestalten von Sokrates bis Alfred Biolek elf historische Finsterlinge gegenüber. Einfühlsam erzählt er unterhaltsame und gruselige Geschichten aus 2500 Jahren. Der gelegentlich ausrastende Makedonenkönig Alexander der Große, der hinterhältige Kaiser Heliogabal, der mordende Papst Sixtus IV., der terroristische Revolutionär Robespierre, der Spion im k.u.k. Generalstab Oberst Redl, der schwule Nazi Röhm, der im »Dritten Reich« gern die Macht mit Hitler geteilt hätte, der versteckt schwule FBI-Chef Hoover, der Schriftsteller und Putschist Mishima, der kannibalistische Massenmörder Dahmer und der Neonazi Kühnen, der gern ein zweiter Hitler geworden wäre.

Klaus Reichold, Thomas Endl: Ludwig forever

D 2011, 222 S. mit zahlreichen farb. Abb., geb., € 24.67
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Hoffmann und Campe
Der »Kini« Ludwig II. von Bayern ist eine der schillerndsten, mythenumrankten Figuren der deutschen Geschichte. Der weißblaue Märchenkönig war schwul, genial und exzentrisch. Die Geschichte seines Privatlebens - abgeleitet aus Augenzeugenberichten - liest sich wie ein süffisanter Klatschreport aus einer fantastischen Welt - voller Absurditäten und schrulliger Eskapaden abseits des hagiographischen Ludwigskitsches. Die Autoren haben die zeitgenössische Presse durchforstet, sich durch Klatschspalten geackert und haben im Geheimen Hausarchiv der Wittelsbacher nach bislang wenig beachteten Fakten gegraben. So machten beispielsweise schon während König Ludwigs Regierungszeit Gerüchte die Runde, dass der König homoerotische Verhältnisse hatte. Während des Kriegs 1866 vergnügte sich der König mit dem Fürsten von Thurn und Taxis anstatt an der Spitze seiner Armee zu stehen.

Christopher Isherwood: Diaries Vol. One: 1939 - 1960

Ed. by Katherine Bucknell. UK 2011, 1050 pp., brochure, € 27.99
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In 1939 Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden emigrated together to the United States. In spare, luminous prose these diaries describe Isherwood's search for a new life in California, his work as a screenwriter in Hollywood, his pacifism during World War II and his friendships with such gifted artists and intellectuals as Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, Klaus Mann, Charles Laughton, Lawrence Olivier, and Aldous Huxley. Throughout this period, Isherwood continued to write novels and sustain his literary friendships - with E.M. Forster, Somerset Maugham, Tennessee Williams and others. He turned to his diaries several times a week to record jokes and gossip, observations about his adopted country, philosophy and mystical insights. His devotion to his diary was a way of accounting for himself.

Eric Poole: Where's My Wand?

One Boy's Magical Triumph over Alienation and Shag Carpeting. USA 2011, 292 pp., brochure, € 12.69
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From an early age, Eric Poole was obsessed with Eudora of TV's »Bewitched«. Just days after his family's Pontiac pulled into the driveway of the Pooles' new home in St. Louis, Missouri, 8-year-old Eric had staked out the basement as his special place: a spot where he could secretly perform magical incantations, draped in a flowing white bedspread he furtively hoped his compulsive mother wouldn't miss. At every rocky moment in his life, or when he was desperate to change future events before they could unfold, Eric would turn to his magical tools, close his eyes tight, and try to make everything all right. From his friendship with a fearless girl who has no arms, to his attempt to perform an exorcism on the cute boy in his vacation bible school, to his anxiety that his magical wish to be superior has killed a family friend Poole's stories take you into a mind of someone trying to make sense of the world.

Seymour Phillips: Edward II

USA/UK 2010, 679 pp. illustrated, hardbound, € 32.99
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Edward II, King of England, Lord of Ireland and Duke of Aquitaine, was the object of ignominy during his lifetime and has been defamed ever since. Conventionally viewed as worthless, incapable of sustained policy and significant only for his sporadic displays of ill-directed energy or stubborn adherence to ambitious favourites, he has been presented as fit only to be deposed of the throne. He was passionately attached to Piers Gaveston until the latter's murder in 1312, and fatally manipulated by the much more sinister Hugh Despenser in the 1320s. The version of Edward's murder by having a red-hot poker inserted through his anus seems to have been circulated by those who wished to blacken Edward's reputation even more. Edward II was probably suffocated, or even died of natural causes in prison.