Samuel R. Delany

Author profile

born

April 01, 1942 in New York City, The United States

gender

male

website

http://www.samuelrdelany.com/

genre

Science Fiction & Fantasy, Gay & Lesbian

About this author

edit data

Samuel Ray Delany, Jr. (born April 1, 1942, New York City) is an award-winning American science fiction author. He has written works that have garnered substantial critical acclaim, including the novels Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection (winners of the Nebula Award for 1966 and 1967 respectively), Nova, Hogg, Dhalgren, and the Return to Nevèrÿon series. Since January 2001 he has been a professor of English and Creative Writing at Temple University in Philadelphia. He is widely known in the academic world as a literary critic. (from Wikipedia)
Samuel Delany, also known as "Chip," was born to a prominent black family on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem. His mother, Margaret Carey Boyd Delany, was a library clerk in the New York Public Lib...more Samuel Ray Delany, Jr. (born April 1, 1942, New York City) is an award-winning American science fiction author. He has written works that have garnered substantial critical acclaim, including the novels Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection (winners of the Nebula Award for 1966 and 1967 respectively), Nova, Hogg, Dhalgren, and the Return to Nevèrÿon series. Since January 2001 he has been a professor of English and Creative Writing at Temple University in Philadelphia. He is widely known in the academic world as a literary critic. (from Wikipedia)
Samuel Delany, also known as "Chip," was born to a prominent black family on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem. His mother, Margaret Carey Boyd Delany, was a library clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany, Senior, ran a successful Harlem undertaking establishment, Levy & Delany Funeral Home, on 7th Avenue, between 1938 and his death in 1960. The family lived in the top two floors of the three-story private house between five- and six-story Harlem apartment buildings. Delany's aunts were Sadie and Bessie Delany; Delany used some of their adventures as the basis for the adventures of his characters Elsie and Corry in the opening novella "Atlantis: Model 1924" in his book of largely autobiographical stories Atlantis: Three Tales.

Delany attended the Dalton School and the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Delany and poet Marilyn Hacker met in high school, and were married in 1961. Their marriage lasted nineteen years. They had a daughter, Iva Hacker-Delany (b. 1974), who spent a decade working in theater in New York City and is currently in medical school.

Delany was a published science fiction author by the age of 20. He published nine well-regarded science fiction novels between 1962 and 1968, as well as several prize-winning short stories (collected in Driftglass [1971] and more recently in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories [2002]). His eleventh and most popular novel, Dhalgren, was published in 1975. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was the Return to Nevèrÿon series, the overall title of the four volumes and also the title of the fourth and final book.

Delany has published several autobiographical/semi-autobiographical accounts of his life as a black, gay, and highly dyslexic writer, including his Hugo award winning autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water.

Since 1988, Delany has been a professor at several universities. He spent 11 years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo, then moved to the English Department of Temple University in 2001, where he has been teaching since. He has had several visiting guest professorships before and during these same years. He has also published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. In one of his non-fiction books, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), he draws on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men, gay and straight, in New York City.

In 2007, Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. The film debuted on April 25 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.(less)

combine editions
Books by Samuel R. Delany

Average rating: 3.86 · 14,534 ratings · 1,356 reviews · 102 distinct works

	Dhalgren 3.83 avg rating — 2,459 ratings — published 1974 — 19 editions	My rating:
	Babel-17 3.78 avg rating — 1,620 ratings — published 1966 — 23 editions	My rating:
	Nova 3.80 avg rating — 1,322 ratings — published 1968 — 20 editions	My rating:
	The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany, Neil Gaiman (Goodreads Author) (Introduction) 3.61 avg rating — 889 ratings — published 1967 — 20 editions	My rating:
	Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany, Carl Freedman (Foreword) 3.93 avg rating — 737 ratings — published 1984 — 6 editions	My rating:
	Babel-17/Empire Star 3.94 avg rating — 553 ratings — 2 editions	My rating:
	The Motion Of Light In Water: Sex And Science Fiction Writing In The East Village 4.32 avg rating — 348 ratings — published 1988 — 9 editions	My rating:
	Times Square Red, Times Square Blue 4.04 avg rating — 341 ratings — published 1999 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia by Samuel R. Delany, Kathy Acker (Foreword) 3.72 avg rating — 493 ratings — published 1976 — 15 editions	My rating:
	Tales of Nevèrÿon (Return to Nevèrÿon, #1) 3.93 avg rating — 365 ratings — 6 editions	My rating:

More books by Samuel R. Delany…

Series by Samuel R. Delany

The Fall of the Towers (3 books)
by Samuel R. Delany

3.45 avg rating — 330 ratings

Upcoming Events

No scheduled events. Add an event.

Quotes by Samuel R. Delany

“The only important elements in any society are the artistic and the criminal, because they alone, by questioning the society’s values, can force it to change.”
― Samuel R. Delany, Empire Star

32 people liked it

“It is a magic book. Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind.”
― Samuel R. Delany, Equinox

23 people liked it

“You meet a new person, you go with him and suddenly you get a whole new city...you go down new streets, you see houses you never saw before, pass places you didn't even know were there. Everything changes.”
― Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren

tags: change , discovery , perspective , travel

15 people liked it

See all Samuel R. Delany's quotes »

Polls

APRIL SCIENCE FICTION: This run-off poll determines which book will be our April Science Fiction Book of the Month!

The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany

47 votes, 51.1%

Dawn by Octavia E. Butler

45 votes, 48.9%

92 total votes

comments and details

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Samuel R. Delany ...: Link to a Publisher	1	18	Aug 04, 2007 11:42pm
Building a SciFi/...: re-reading books	26	109	Dec 18, 2008 04:02am
SciFi and Fantasy...: Discover 20 post-apocalyptic novels	8	163	Apr 19, 2009 05:56pm
SciFi and Fantasy...: Nomination Thread for June Fantasy Theme Pick - Sci-Fantasy	71	446	Apr 22, 2009 03:37pm
Goodreads Sci-Fi/...: Greetings and Hullo!	5	58	Jul 15, 2009 09:41am
Queereaders: * List of group reads	1	185	Oct 30, 2009 05:04pm
SciFi and Fantasy...: Best Apocalypse Novels	114	1212	Jan 19, 2010 09:18am
Hard SF: Booklist for BotM Poll for May 2010	9	35	Apr 18, 2010 04:35am

More…

Is this you? Let us know. If not, help out and invite Samuel to Goodreads.

Add New
Videos

Samuel's Fans (229)

Samuel R. Delany

Author profile

combine editions
Books by Samuel R. Delany

Series by Samuel R. Delany

Upcoming Events

Quotes by Samuel R. Delany

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Add NewVideos

Samuel's Fans (229)

Samuel R. Delany

Author profile

combine editionsBooks by Samuel R. Delany

Series by Samuel R. Delany

Upcoming Events

Quotes by Samuel R. Delany

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Add New
Videos

combine editions
Books by Samuel R. Delany