Queer

In a recent article for The Guardian, Sarah Waters reflects on the twenty years that have passed since the publication of her first novel, Tipping The Velvet (1998), a lesbian coming-of-age story set in 1890s London. In the time since the book was first published, she remarks, we have seen ‘enormous changes in the lives of [British LGBTQ+ people], who now have equal rights with heterosexuals as partners, parents and employees, and enjoy a mainstream cultural presence I wouldn’t have believed possible back in 1998’ (Waters 2018). It is on the variety and quality of the ‘mainstream cultural presence’ that this chapter focuses. It tracks some of the energies and currents that queer literary fiction has been preoccupied with since the beginning of the twenty-first century, and notes how queer representations have gained ground, now occupying a less marginal place in contemporary culture. ¹ The popularity of well-known gay and lesbian authors such as Edmund White, Alan Hollinghurst, Jeanette Winterson, Sarah Waters, Colm Tóibín and Ali Smith, whose reputations have only increased in the new century, has paved the way for a wider market for queer fiction that examines a broad range of topics. As Hugh Stevens notes, ‘Contemporary queer fiction, in its heterogeneity, has reflected the heterogeneity of queer identities, culture, and politics’ (2014: 628). The increased positive reception and wider market for queer fiction since the point at which Sarah Waters published her first novel means these texts reach greater numbers of people faster, and the appetite for nuanced texts continues. This chapter argues that two important developments have taken place in contemporary queer fiction. Novels depicting intersectional experiences, gender nonconformity or transitioning, and those examining the lives of LGBTQ+ people in less tolerant countries have become far more prominent.