Diana Souhami

A new book

2 april 2020 is the projected publication date for my new book. Head of Zeus is the publisher. Modernism Would Not Have Happened Without Lesbians is the working title. I don’t know what the final title will be. I’ve suggested: Not the Paris of Our Fathers: Four Lesbians and Modernism. The publisher seems to favour No Modernism Without Lesbians. I wonder about Lesbians Galore in 4 volumes, this being the first. ‘Don’t worry about the title’ the editor said over lunch on Friday 3 May. ‘We’ll sort that later.’ But it’s not sorted yet. [ Read more on the News page ]

Memoir

I guess this will be a sort of conversation with myself. It is not something I’d want to publish as a book or want to exist outside of this website. I’m at an age where remembering and looking back just happens. I’ll add to this memoir as and when, and I don’t know what it will amount to. I’ll tweet with its anchor when a new piece is added. [ Read more ]

I began writing books about lesbians in the 1980s. I have twice won the US Lambda Literary Award for best gay writing. In 2014 in the UK I was named a Rainbow List National Treasure in the Lifetime Achievement category… Two of my books, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall and Coconut Chaos, have been broadcast as BBC Radio 4’s ‘Book of the Week’. The Radclyffe Hall book was also shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Mrs Keppel and Her Daughter was a New York Times ‘Notable Book of the Year’ and featured on BBC 4’s ‘A Good Read’. My first book Gluck: Her Biography was recently the basis for a BBC documentary and an exhibition at the Brighton Art Gallery. Among other titles Selkirk’s Island won the Whitbread biography award, Edith Cavell won East Anglia Book of the Year and Murder at Wrotham Hill was shortlisted for a Crime Writers Golden Dagger Award.

Bakst: The Rothschild Panels of The Sleeping Beauty

I have also written plays for radio and stage. Strip Show, a series of monologues by women, was performed at the Edinburgh Festival and at the King’s Head in Islington. Among my radio plays Prunella Scales starred in What a Saga and Patricia Routledge in A Horse Called Gertrude Stein.