Samuel R. Delany
Samuel R. "Chip" Delany (/dəˈleɪni/, də-LAY-nee; born April 1, 1942) is an American writer and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism, and essays on science fiction, literature, sexuality, and society. His fiction includes Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection (winners of the Nebula Award for 1966 and 1967, respectively); Hogg, Nova, Dhalgren, the Return to Nevèrÿon series, and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. His nonfiction includes Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, About Writing, and eight books of essays. He has won four Nebula awards and two Hugo Awards, and he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2002.
Samuel R. Delany
Samuel Ray Delany Jr.
April 1, 1942
Harlem, New York City, U.S.
K. Leslie Steiner, S. L. Kermit
- Writer
- editor
- professor
- literary critic
1962–present[1]
Science fiction, fantasy, autobiography, creative nonfiction, erotic literature, literary criticism
Science fiction, lesbian and gay studies, eroticism
Marilyn Hacker (1961–80)
Dennis Rickett (1991–present)
Iva Hacker-Delany
From January 1975 to May 2015,[5][6] he was a professor of English, Comparative Literature, and/or Creative Writing at SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Albany, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Temple University.
In 1997, he won the Kessler Award; further, in 2010, he won the third J. Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award in Science Fiction from the academic Eaton Science Fiction Conference at UCR Libraries.[7] The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 30th SFWA Grand Master in 2013,[8] and in 2016, he was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. Delany received the 2021 Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award.
Early life[edit]
Samuel Ray Delany, Jr. was born on April 1, 1942,[9] and raised in Harlem.[10] His mother, Margaret Carey (Boyd) Delany (1916–1995), was a clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany Sr. (1906–1960), ran the Levy & Delany Funeral Home on 7th Avenue in Harlem, from 1938 until his death in 1960. The family lived in the top two floors of a three-story private house between five- and six-story Harlem apartment buildings.
Delany was born into an accomplished and ambitious family of the African American upper class. His grandfather, Henry Beard Delany (1858—1928), was born into slavery, but after emancipation became educated, a priest and the first black bishop of the Episcopal Church.[11] Civil rights pioneers Sadie and Bessie Delany were among his paternal aunts.[10] (He drew from their lives as the basis for characters Elsie and Corry in "Atlantis: Model 1924", the opening novella in his semi-autobiographical collection Atlantis: Three Tales.) Other notable family members include his aunt, Harlem Renaissance poet Clarissa Scott Delany, and his uncle, judge Hubert Thomas Delany.[12]
Delany attended the private Dalton School and, from 1951 through 1956, spent summers at Camp Woodland in Phoenicia, New York.[13] He studied at the merit-based Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Delany's first published short story, "Salt", appeared in Dynamo, Bronx Science's literary magazine, in 1960.[14]
Delany's father died from lung cancer in October 1960. The following year, in August 1961, Delany married poet/translator Marilyn Hacker, and the couple settled in New York's East Village neighborhood at 629 East 5th Street. Hacker was working as an assistant editor at Ace Books, and her intervention helped Delany become a published science fiction author by the age of 20.[15] He had finished writing that first novel (The Jewels of Aptor, published in 1962)[10] while 19, shortly after dropping out of the City College of New York after one semester.
Personal life[edit]
As a child, Delany envied children with nicknames. He took one for himself on the first day of a new summer camp, Camp Woodland, at the age of 11, by answering "Everybody calls me Chip!" when asked his name.[39] Decades later, Frederik Pohl called him "a person who is never addressed by his friends as Sam, Samuel or any other variant of the name his parents gave him."[9]
Delany's name is one of the most misspelled in science fiction, having been misspelled on over 60 occasions in reviews.[40] His publisher Doubleday misspelled his name on the title page of Driftglass, as did the organizers of Balticon in 1982 where Delany was guest of honor.
Delany has identified as gay since adolescence.[41] However, some observers have described him as bisexual due to his complicated 19-year marriage with poet/translator Marilyn Hacker, who was aware of Delany's orientation and has identified as a lesbian since their divorce.[42]
Delany and Hacker had one child in 1974, Iva Hacker-Delany, now a physician.[43][44]
In 1991, Delany entered a committed, nonexclusive relationship with Dennis Rickett, previously a homeless book vendor. Their courtship is chronicled in the graphic memoir Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (1999), a collaboration with the writer and artist Mia Wolff.
Delany is an atheist.[45]
Delany is a supporter of NAMBLA.[46]
In 2022, Delany was featured in the PBS television documentary series Articulate.[67]