Peter Parker in Conversation with Diarmuid Hester
To mark the first instalment of his landmark anthology, Some Men In London, Peter Parker discusses queer experience in post-war London with historian and writer Diarmuid Hester.
Described as ‘a work of genius’ by Matthew Parris, Some Men In London: Queer Life, 1945-1959 is replete with letters, ephemera, novels and much more, documenting and discovering the complex and extraordinary history of queer life in London.
Peter Parker is the author of biographies of J. R. Ackerley and Christopher Isherwood, The Old Lie, The Last Veteran, Housman Country and A Little Book of Latin for Gardeners. He edited A Reader's Guide to the Twentieth-Century Novel and Twentieth-Century Writers, is an advisory editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and contributed essays to Britten's Century and Fifty Gay and Lesbian Books Everybody Must Read. He has written about people, books, art, architecture and gardening for a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, and lives in London's East End.
Parker will be in conversation with cultural historian, writer, and activist, Diarmuid Hester. An expert on sexually dissident literature, art, film and performance, he is the author of the critically acclaimed Wrong: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper. He is a research associate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, a fellow of the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library and a BBC New Generation Thinker. He teaches at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, and co-founded the city’s queer performance and music night Club Urania. His latest work, Nothing Ever Just Disappears, was published in 2023.
The event will be followed by a book signing. Doors will open from 6:45pm.
Tickets: £8 General Admission / £33 Book and Ticket, inc. a copy of Some Men In London (RRP £30) Venue: The Auditorium (Level 6) at Foyles, 107 Charing Cross Road Please note that the Auditorium at Foyles is fully accessible from the Ground floor lifts.