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Samuel R. Delany

Samuel R. "Chip" Delany (/dəˈlni/, 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.
(1942-04-01) April 1, 1942
Harlem, New York City, U.S.

K. Leslie Steiner, S. L. Kermit

  • Writer
  • editor
  • professor
  • literary critic

1962–present[1]

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]

1985: , presented by the Science Fiction Research Association for Lifetime Achievement in the field of science fiction scholarship.

Pilgrim Award

1997: award for LGBTQ Studies at CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies[60]

David R. Kessler

2002: Inducted into the .[61]

Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame

2010: Lifetime Achievement Award in Science Fiction from the academic Eaton Science Fiction Conference at UCR Libraries.[7]

J. Lloyd Eaton

2012: for contributions to LGBT studies and LGBT communities, awarded by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies (LGBTS) at Yale University.[62]

Brudner Prize

2013: named him its 30th SFWA Grand Master[8]

Science Fiction Writers of America

2016: Inducted into the .

New York State Writers Hall of Fame

2021: Imagination in Service to Society Award for Outstanding Contributions to Fiction, Criticism and Essays on Science Fiction, Literature and Society by the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.[63]

Sir Arthur Clarke

2021: .[64]

Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award

2022: , Lifetime Achievement[65]

World Fantasy Award

2022: , LGBTQ Erotica[66]

Lambda Literary Award

In 2022, Delany was featured in the PBS television documentary series Articulate.[67]

Wonder Woman, 1972

Empire, art by Howard V. Chaykin, 1978

"Seven Moons' Light Casts Complex Shadows" in Epic Illustrated No. 2, art by Howard Chaykin, pages 67–74, June 1980[95]

[94]

Bread & Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York, art by Mia Wolff, introduction by Alan Moore, 1999

(2015), edited by SF and fantastic fiction writer Nisi Shawl, and published by author and Rosarium Publishing founder, Bill Campbell. With essays and short fiction contributions from writers including Kim Stanley Robinson, Eileen Gunn, Vincent Czyz, and Michael Swanwick.

Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany

LGBT themes in speculative fiction

Barbour, Douglas (1979). Worlds Out of Words: The SF Novels of Samuel R. Delany. Frome, Somerset, UK: Bran's Head Books Ltd.  978-0-905220-13-0.

ISBN

Bravard, Robert S.; Peplow, Michael W. (1984). "Through a Glass Darkly: Bibliographing Samuel R. Delany". Black American Literature Forum. 18 (2): 69–75. :10.2307/2904129. JSTOR 2904129.

doi

Lucas, Julian (July 3, 2023). . The New Yorker.

"How Samuel R. Delany Reimagined Sci-Fi, Sex, and the City"

Weedman, Jane (1984). . In Clareson, Thomas D. (ed.). Voices for the Future: Essays on Major Science Fiction Writers. Vol. Three. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press. pp. 151–185. ISBN 978-0-87972-252-4. Retrieved May 21, 2023.

"Art and the Artist's Role in Delany's Works"

Delany's official website

Samuel R. Delany Information

Delany bibliography

. Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

"Samuel R. Delany biography"

at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Samuel R. Delany

at the Internet Book List

Samuel R. Delany

at Open Library

Works by Samuel R. Delany

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah (Summer 2011). . The Paris Review. Summer 2011 (197).

"Samuel R. Delany, The Art of Fiction No. 210"

Interview with Samuel R. Delany in Big Other

James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Samuel R. Delany Papers.

(2017 interview)

Sci-Fi Legend Samuel R. Delany Doesn't Play Favorites