The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village

In 1961, Samuel R. Delany and his wife, white poet Marilyn Hacker, moved to New York’s Lower East Side. New art, sexual practices, music, and political awareness burgeoned among the crowded streets and apartments. Beautifully, vividly, insightfully, Delany calls up this era of exploration as he details his development as a black gay writer in an open marriage, with walk-ons by Bob Dylan, Stokely Carmichael, W. H. Auden, and James Baldwin. A very moving, intensely fascinating literary biography from an extraordinary writer. Thoroughly admirable candor and luminous stylistic precision; the artist as a young man and a memorable picture of an age. —WILLIAM GIBSON Absolutely central to any consideration of black manhood... Delany s vision of the necessity for total social and political transformation is revolutionary. —HAZEL CARBY The prose of The Motion of Light in Water ofien has the shimmering beauty of the title itself.... This book is invaluable gay history. —INCHES MAGAZINE Winner of the 1989 Hugo Award for Nonfiction