It's a book I keep thinking of during the quarantine, because it takes place in a city where something catastrophic has happened and people have had to adapt to a new reality and create new ways of being together to survive. One that William Gibson called a labyrinth. It's a complicated, long, experimental book. Mark Gunnery: In 1974, you published the novel Dhalgren. Recorded in May 2020. Transcript edited and expanded by Samuel R. Click the player above to hear the conversation, or read the transcript below. Delany joined WYPR to discuss his book in light of the current pandemic. He meets roving bands of squatters called Scorpions, falls in and out of relationsips with men and women, and tries, but usually fails, to make sense of his strange surroundings. Kidd navigates the city with one shoe on his foot and a notebook in his hand. The book follows one such Bellona resident, an unreliable narrator whose memory is so damaged he can't remember his own name, so he is known alternately as the Kid and Kidd.

But some people, especially social outcasts, are drawn towards Bellona, where the crisis forces them to find new ways of living and relating in order to survive. The infrastructure and streets are damaged, fires rage nonstop, radio, television, and phone technology no longer work, and many residents have fled the city. Whatever happened in Bellona, the city is a shell of what it once was. Was it a race riot? Was it a plane falling, possibly crashing into the street? Was it a political shooting? Was it a case of somebody shooting some people on the street from a roof?' 'You kind of have to pick the one that makes most sense. 'There are suggestions of all sorts of catastrophes that might have happened in Dhalgren,' Delany told WYPR. Something traumatic-it's not clear what-has happened in the city. Delany lives in Philadelphia, and is Professor Emeritus in the English Department at Temple University.ĭelany's novel Dhalgren takes place in the fictional midwestern city of Bellona. His output is vast and diverse, running the gamut from the fantasy of his Return to Nevèrÿon series to reflections on sex and gentrification in the nonfiction Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. He achieved massive success as a Black gay writer in a publishing world long dominated by straight white men. He has published dozens of novels, memoirs, short stories, and works of literary criticism since the early sixties. Delany.ĭelany is one of the most accomplished living science fiction writers.

In a year when peoples' lives have been turned upside down by coronavirus many readers have found solace in science fiction. Science fiction has long been an arena where authors can speculate about the future from an uncertain present. One book that feels especially prescient during this moment of crisis is the 1975 classic Dhalgren by Samuel R.