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Writer E. Lynn Harris is dead
, editor in chief, 365gay.com
07.24.2009 1:20pm EDT
07.24.2009 1:20pm EDT
E. Lynn Harris, the African-American, openly gay author, died while on a West Coast book tour. He was 54.
He was on tour for his most recent book, Basketball Jones, about the gay lover of an NBA star.
Harris
grew up in Little Rock and attended the University of Arkansas at
Fayetteville, where he continued to teach courses through last fall.
He
self-published his first book, Invisible Life, after failing to find a
publisher. He sold it himself at black-owned bookstores and beauty
salons until Anchor Books published it as a trade paperback in 1994.
Harris
wrote 11 books, with four million copies of his work in print. His
writing also appeared in Essence, the Washington Post Sunday Magazine,
and Sports Illustrated.
His novel If This World Were Mine was
nominated for a NAACP Image Award and won the James Baldwin Award for
Literary Excellence. Abide with Me was also nominated for a NAACP Image
Award. His anthology Freedom in this Village won the Lambda Literary
Award in 2005. Over the past three years, he has also been named to
Ebony’s “Most Intriguing Blacks” list, Out Magazine’s “Out 100″ list,
New York Magazine’s “Gay Power 101″ list, and Savoy’s “100 Leaders and
Heroes in Black America” list.
Listen to an audio interview with E. Lynn Harris.