by Naomi Holoch
Ann pressed her body closer to Minnie’s and kissed her cheek. Mrs. Bellini, her eyes narrowed, was watching from her seat.
“I love you, Min.”
“I love you.”
“Even better, marry me! I have a limousine waiting.”
“My mother’s looking a bit strange.”
“Well well well, are we surprised?”
Mrs. Bellini was standing, walking, brushing away Mr. Bellini’s hand. Aunt Luisa watched her sister approach, then turned and watched the stringbean Annie with her little niece.
Mrs. Bellini was nearly upon them. Aunt Luisa, sitting nearest the dance floor, was able to reach up and with much force pull her sister into a seat. With one hand, Aunt Luisa waved at Ann and Minnie, still smiling.
“Yoo hoo! You girls!”
Her other hand, under the table, had a firm grip on her sister.
“Luisa! Stop it. Let me up!”
Luisa continued to beam. Her champagne glass was lifted high, frothing and full. Ann turned back to Minnie and grinned.
“Somehow I don’t think we’ve got the full story on your aunt.”
Aunt Luisa’s glass spilled over just as Minnie reached up and kissed Ann quite expertly on the lips.
VIII
My hand on your hand
both
In the hollow of
a tree
one sky chasing another
sky
both
devouring atoms
and
going to the moon.
Green is the color of
space.
Two lips tasting mushrooms
and the Colorado River
haunting
the village …
from the persistent Mediterranean
to the persistent
Pacific
we cut roads with our feet
share baggage and
food
running always one second
ahead of the running of
Time
we are traveling at some
infinite speed
we are not scared.
—Etel Adnan
from The Indian Never Had a Horse
Bibliography
Most of the books on this list—as well as all the correspondence and manuscripts growing out of this collection—will be housed at the Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) in Brooklyn, New York.
Adnan, Etel. “In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country.” Mundus Artium. 10:1, 1977. Dallas: University of Texas.
————. The Indian Never Had a Horse. Sausalito, CA: Post Apollo Press, 1985.
Best, Mireille. Les Mots de hasard. Paris: Gallimard, 1980. Translated by Janine Ricouart.
Blaman, Anna. Eenzaam Avontuur. Amsterdam: J. M. Meulenhoff, 1948. Translated by Donald Gardner. Brand, Dionne. Sans Souci. Ithaca, New York: Firebrand Books, 1989.
Brantenberg, Gerd. The Four Winds. Seattle: Women in Translation, 1996.
Brossard, Nicole. Mauve Desert. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1990. Translated by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood.
Dorcey, Mary. A Noise from the Woodshed: Short Stories. London: Only-woman Press, 1989.
Duffy, Maureen. The Microcosm. London: Virago Press, Ltd., 1966.
Jutras, Jeanne d’Arc. Georgie. Montreal: Editions Pleine Lune, 1978. Translated by Naomi Holoch.
Leduc, Violette. L’Asphyxie. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1948. Translated by Naomi Holoch.
Maraini, Dacia. Letters to Marina. London: Camden Press, 1987. Translated by Dick Kitto and Elspeth Spottiswood.
Min, Anchee. Red Azalea. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994.
Molloy, Sylvia. Certificate of Absence. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989. Translated by Daniel Balderson and the author.
Peri Rossi, Cristina. A Forbidden Passion. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1993. Translated by Mary Jane Treacy.
Mootoo, Shani. Out on Main Street. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1993.
Rifaat, Alifa. Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories. London: Quartet Books, Ltd., 1983.
Silvera, Makeda. Her Head a Village and Other Stories. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1994.
Te Awekotuku, Ngahuia. Tahuri. Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand: New Women’s Press, 1989.
Tusquets, Esther. The Same Sea as Every Summer. Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 1990. Translated by Margaret E. W. Jones.
Winsloe, Christa. The Child Manuela. London: Virago Press Ltd., 1994. Translated by Agnes Neill Scott.
Yourcenar, Marguerite. Fires. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., 1981. Translated by Dori Katz.
Suggested Additional Reading
Anderson, Shelley, ed. Lesbian Rights are Human Rights. Amsterdam: International Lesbian Information Services, 1995. Can be ordered from ILIS, Nieuwezijdo Voorburgwal 68.70 NL. 1012 SE Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
————. Out in the World: International Lesbian Organizing. Firebrand Sparks #4. Ithaca: Firebrand Books.
Arguelles, Lourdes, and Ruby B. Rich. “Homosexuality, Homophobia and Revolution: Notes Toward an Understanding of the Cuban Lesbian and Gay Male Experience.” Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, edited by M. Duberman, M. Vicinus, and G. Chauncey. New York: New American Library, 1989.
Bergmann, E. L., and P.J. Smith, eds. Entiendes: Queer Reading, Hispanic Writing. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995.
Dorf, Julie. “A History of Homosexuality in Russia and the USSR.” Unpublished paper, nd. Lesbian Herstory Archives, P.O. Box 1258, New York, N.Y. 10116.
Gevisser, Mark, and Edwin Cameron. Defiant Desire: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Healey, Emma, and Angela Mason, eds. Stonewall 25: The Making of the Lesbian and Gay Community in Britain. London: Virago Press, 1994.
Krouse, Matthew, ed. The Invisible Ghetto: Lesbian and Gay Writing from South Africa. London: Gay Men’s Press, 1995.
Likosky, S. Coming Out: An Anthology of International Gay and Lesbian Writings. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992.
Lim-Hing, Sharon, ed. The Very Inside: An Anthology of Writing by Asian and Pacific Island Bisexual Women. Toronto: Sister Vision Press, 1994.
Martinez, Elena M. Lesbian Voices from Latin America. New York: Garland Publishers, 1996.
McLeod, Donald W. Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada: A Selected Annotated Chronology, 1964–1975. Toronto: ECW Press and Home-wood Books, 1996.
O’Carroll, Ide, and Eoin Collins. Lesbian and Gay Visions of Ireland: Towards the Twenty-First Century. London: Cassell, 1995. Parikas, U. and T. Veispak, eds. “Sexual Minorities and Society: The Changing Attitudes Toward Homosexuality in 20th Century Europe.” Paper presented to the international conference in Tallinn, May 28–30, 1990.
Randall, Margaret, and Lynda Yana, eds. “‘Coming Out as a Lesbian Is What Brought Me to Social Consciousness’: Rita Arauz.” In Sandino’s Daughters Revisited: Feminism in Nicaragua. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994.
————. “To Change Our Own Reality and the World: A Conversation with Lesbians in Nicaragua.” Signs 18 (Summer, 1993): 907–925.
Rosenbloom, Rachel, ed. Unspoken Rules: Sexual Orientation and Women’s Human Rights. London: Cassell and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, 1996.
Silvera, Makeda, ed. Piece of My Heart: A Lesbian of Colour Anthology. Toronto: Sister Vision Press, 1991.
Tuller, David. Cracks in the Iron Closet: Travels in Gay and Lesbian Russia. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1996.
Acknowledgments
First of all, we wish to thank Sydelle Kramer, our agent, from the Frances Golden Agency, and LuAnn Walther, our editor, and Diana Secker Larson at Vintage, for their patience and perseverance during this long process.
We are deeply indebted to the following individuals who supported our vision, taught us the technological ropes of online communication, put us in contact with writers and their work, and did translations: Hu
ey-Min Chuang, Janine Ricouart, Francesca Sautman, M. Katherine Cirsena, Maria Gagliardo, Sylvia Molloy, Ginu Kamani, Sonja Franeta, Marilyn Hacker, Achy Obejas, Margaret Randall, Naomi Replansky, Elena Madrigal Rodriguez, Saskia Scheffer, Lisa Davis, Maike van Haskamp, Joke Peters, Nerina Milletti, Jared Becker, Ruth Siegel, Carolyn Gammon, Elspeth Spottiswood, Karin X. Tulchinsky, James Johnston, Karla Jay, Helga Pankratz, Gail Phederson, Claire Maree, Junkio Yoshiawa, and Masha Gessen.
We want to thank all the activists and authors who wrote background essays for us on the legal, social, and political realities facing lesbians in their countries: Yasmin V. Tambiah (Sri Lanka), Sharon Lim-Hing (China), Giti Thadani (India), Claire Maree (Japan), Odette Alonso (Cuba), Makeda Silvera (Jamaica), Karen X. Tulchinsky (Canada), Karen Williams (South Africa), Alison J. Laurie (New Zealand), Barbara Farrelly (Australia), Nerina Milletti (Italy), Suzanne Triton Robichon (France), Dorothee Winded (Germany), Marike van Harskamp and Joke Peters (Holland), Karin Lutzen (Denmark), Suzana Tratnik (Slovenia), Sonja Franeta and Mash Gessen (Russia), Ide O’Carroll (Ireland), Constantia Constantinou (Cyprus), Gila Svirsky (Israel), Etel Adnan (Lebanon), and Shelley Anderson (International Lesbian Information Service). All of these essays are available at the Lesbian Herstory Archives, P.O. Box 1258, New York, N.Y. 10116.
We also want to thank the independent and feminist press and publishers who have brought to print so many of the authors included here: Cleis Press, Aunt Lute Books, Seal Press, Women in Translation, Firebrand Books, Gay Men’s Press, Cassell Press, and Talon Books. A special thank you to J. M. Meulenhoff Publishers of Amsterdam.
We want to thank the following individuals who helped the anxiety-provoking permission process reach a happy conclusion: Richard Abbate of Pantheon Books, Patricia James of Little, Brown, Barbara Tolley representing Gallimard, Dana Wooley of Cleis Press, Christine Scudder of Aunt Lute, Claire Maruhn of the University of Nebraska Press, Barbara Kuhne of Press Gang Publishers, and Barbara Wilson of Women in Translation.
Permissions Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published and new material:
“Aphrodite’s Vision” by Elena Georgiou, copyright © 1996 by Elena Georgiou. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Excerpt from L’Asphyxie by Violette Leduc, copyright © 1948 by Editions Gallimard. Reprinted by permission of Editions Gallimard.
“Caribbean Chameleon” by Makeda Silvera from Her Head a Village and Other Stories (Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers), copyright © 1994 by Makeda Silvera. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Excerpt from Certificate of Absence by Sylvia Molloy, translated by Daniel Balderston, copyright © 1989 by The University of Texas Press. Reprinted by permission of the author and The University of Texas Press.
Excerpts from The Child Manuela by Christa Winsloe, translated by Agnes Neill Scott, copyright © 1934 by Christa Winsloe. Reprinted by permission of the Virago Press, London.
“The Civil War,” copyright © 1990 by Yasmin V. Tambiah, “Transl(iter)ation I,” copyright © 1990 by Yasmin V. Tambiah, “Transl(iter)ation II,” copyright © 1991 by Yasmin V. Tambiah, “Sandalwood,” copyright © 1990 by Yasmin V. Tambiah. Reprinted by permission of Yasmin V. Tambiah.
Excerpt from Eenzaam Avontuur by Anna Blaman, translated here as Lonely Adventure by Donald Gardner, copyright © 1948, 1999 by the Heirs of Anna Blaman and J. M. Meulenhoff bv, Amsterdam, translation copyright © 1999 by Donald Gardner. Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the translator.
“The Final Judgment” and “Singing in the Desert” from A Forbidden Passion by Cristina Peri Rossi, translated by Mary Jane Treacy, copyright © 1993 by Cristina Peri Rossi. Reprinted by permission of Cristina Peri Rossi and Cleis Press.
“Forever Lasts Only a Full Moon Night” by Rosamaria Roffiel, copyright © 1996 by Rosamaria Roffiel. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Poems “IV” and “VIII” from “Love Poems” from The Indian Never Had a Horse by Etel Adnan. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Excerpt from Four Winds by Gerd Brantenberg, translated by Margaret Hayford O’Leary. English translation copyright © 1996 by Gerd Brantenberg. Reprinted by permission of the publisher Women in Translation, Seattle, WA.
Excerpt from Georgie by Jeanne d’Arc Jutras, copyright © 1978 by Editions de la Pleine Lune. Translated here by Naomi Holoch. Reprinted by permission of Editions de la Pleine Lune.
“The Girl Typist Who Worked for a Provincial Ministry of Culture” by María Eugenia Allegría Nuñez, translated by Lisa Davis, copyright © 1996 by María Eugenia Allegría Nuñez. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Gypsophila” by Dale Gunthorp, copyright © 1990, 1996 by Dale Gunthorp. Originally published in In and Out of Time, edited by Patricia Duncker (London: Onlywomen Press, Ltd., 1990). Reprinted by permission of Dale Gunthrop and Onlywomen Press, Ltd.
Excerpt from “In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country” by Etel Adnan, copyright © 1977 by Etel Adnan. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Lemon Scent” from Out on Main Street and Other Stories by Shani Mootoo, copyright © 1993 by Shani Mootoo. Reprinted by permission of Press Gang Publishers, Vancouver, Canada.
“Lesbian Bedrooms” by Cynthia Price, copyright © 1996 by Cynthia Price. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Excerpt from Letters to Marina by Dacia Maraini, translated by Dick Kitto and Elspeth Spottiswood (London: Camden Press), copyright © 1981 by Dacia Maraini, translation copyright © 1987 by Dick Kitto and Elspeth Spottiswood. Reprinted by permission of the author and the translators.
Excerpt from “Le Livre de Stéphanie” from Les Mots de hasard by Mireille Best, copyright © 1980 by Editions Gallimard. Translated by Janine Ricouart. Reprinted by permission of Editions Gallimard.
“Looking for Petronilla” by Emma Donoghue, copyright © 1996 by Emma Donoghue. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Lost Faces” by Karen-Susan Fessel, copyright © 1996 by Karen-Susan Fessel. Translated by Nora Reed. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Madame Alaird’s Breasts” from Sans Souci by Dionne Brand, copyright © 1989 by Dionne Brand. Reprinted by permission of Firebrand Books, Ithaca, New York.
Excerpts from Mauve Desert by Nicole Brossard, translated by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood, copyright © 1987 by Editions l’Hexagone and Nicole Brossard, English translation copyright © 1990 by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood. Reprinted by permission of Nicole Brossard and Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood.
Excerpt from The Microcosm by Maureen Duffy, copyright © 1966 by Maureen Duffy. Reprinted by permission of the author and Virago Press, London.
“Minnie Gets Married” from Falling for Grace by Gina Schein (Sydney: Black Wattle Press), copyright © 1993 by Gina Schein. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“My World of the Unknown” from Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories by Alifa Rifaat, translated by Denys Johnson-Davies (London: Quartet Books Ltd.), copyright © 1983 by Alifa Rifaat. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
“Natalia” by Gila Svirsky, copyright © 1996 by Gila Svirsky. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“A Noise from the Woodshed” from A Noise from the Woodshed: Short Stories by Mary Dorcey (London: Onlywoman Press), copyright © 1989 by Mary Dorcey. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Paretipua,” “Old Man Tuna,” and “Watching the Big Girls” from Tahuri by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, copyright © 1989 by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku. First published in New Zealand by New Women’s Press, published in the United States and Canada by The Women’s Press, Toronto. Reprinted by permission of New Women’s Press Ltd., Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Excerpts from Red Azalea by Anchee Min, copyright © 1994 by Anchee Min. Reprinted by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., and Victor Gollancz Limited.
Excerpts from The Same Sea as Every Summer by Esther Tusquets, transl
ated by Margaret E. W. Jones, copyright © 1990 by the University of Nebraska Press. Originally published by Editorial Lumen as El Mismo Mar de Todos los Veranos, copyright © 1978 by Esther Tusquets. Reprinted by permission of the University of Nebraska Press and the agent for the author.
“Sappho or Suicide” from Fires by Marguerite Yourcenar, translated by Dori Katz, translation copyright © 1981 by Dori Katz and the author. Published in the United Kingdom by Aidan Ellis Publishing, Henley-on-Thames, England. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., and Aidan Ellis Publishing.
“They Came at Dawn” by Karen Williams from The Invisible Ghetto: Lesbian and Gay Writing from South Africa, edited by Matthew Krouse (London: GMP Publishers, Ltd., 1993), copyright © 1993 by Karen Williams. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Under the Ironwood Trees” by Suzana Tratnik, copyright © 1995 by Suzana Tratnik. Translated from Slovenian to German by Elisabeth Vospernik, and from German to English by Nora Reed.
Excerpt from “3ra. Estacion: Campo de San Barnaba” by Cristina Peri Rossi, translation edited by Anne Twitty, from Lesbian Voices, edited by Elena M. Martinez. Reprinted by permission of Elena M. Martinez.
“Waters” by Achy Obejas, copyright © 1996 by Achy Obejas. Reprinted by permission of the author.
About the Editors
Naomi Holoch is co-editor, with Joan Nestle, of the Women on Women series of anthologies of American lesbian short fiction and the author of short stories and a novel, Offseason. She teaches French language and literature, lesbian and gay fiction, and fiction writing at SUNY-Purchase.
Joan Nestle, author of the award-winning A Restricted Country and A Fragile Union and editor of The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader, is also co-founder of the New York–based Lesbian Herstory Archives. Along with Naomi Holoch, she has edited three volumes of Women on Women anthologies. She also had the honor of working with John Preston on Sister and Brother: Lesbians and Gay Men Talk about Their Lives Together. In 1996 she was awarded the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in Lesbian and Gay Literature by the Publishing Triangle. For close to thirty years, she taught writing in the SEEK Program at Queens College, CUNY.