Anna Livia
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
Working name of Irish author, teacher and editor Anna Livia Julian Brawn (1955-2007), in the UK from her teens and in the US from 1990, latterly a lecturer in French at the University of California, Berkeley; a lesbian feminist of radical views, which she has advanced in tales of considerable wit, though at book length her effects become uneasy. Her second novel, Accommodation Offered (1985), invokes a spirit world which has a ring of fantasy. Her third, Bulldozer Rising (1988), is an sf Dystopia which depicts a culture rigidly dominated by young males in which "old" women, unpersoned and unperceived from the age of 40, represent the only remaining human potential, the only hope for revolt. About half the stories assembled in Saccharin Cyanide (coll 1990) present similar lessons in sf terms (see Feminism), as does the later story "The Boy in the Box" (1994 Strange Plasma #7); the collection Incidents Involving Mirth (coll 1990) also includes some genre tales. [JC]
Anna Livia Julian Brawn
born Dublin, Ireland: 13 November 1955
died Oakland, California: 7 August 2007
works
- Accommodation Offered (London: The Women's Press, 1985) [pb/]
- Bulldozer Rising (London: Onlywomen Press, 1988) [pb/]
- The Pied Piper: Lesbian Feminist Fiction (London: Onlywomen Press, 1989) and Lilian Mohin [anth: pb/]
- Saccharin Cyanide (London: Onlywomen Press, 1990) [coll: pb/]
- Incidents Involving Mirth (Portland, Oregon: Eighth Mountain Press, 1990) [exp vt of the above: four stories added: pb/]
- Minimax (Portland, Oregon: Eighth Mountain Press, 1992) [feminist Vampire novel: hb/]
- Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender and Sexuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) with Kira Hall [nonfiction: anth: hb/]
- Pronoun Envy: Literary Uses of Linguistic Gender (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) [nonfiction: hb/]
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