Donald Windham

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Donald Windham and Sandy Campbell (1955)

Donald Windham (born July 2, 1920 in Atlanta , Georgia , † May 31, 2010 in New York City , New York ) was an American writer. He became known for several novels in which sensitive depictions of relationships play the main role, and for memoirs in which the literary and gay subculture of New York City was described.

Life and work

The son of an impoverished southern family, after graduating from high school and one year of jobbing, moved to New York City on the Greyhound Bus on the first opportunity in 1939. After a period of minor employment, the 19-year-old found a permanent job as an assistant to Lincoln Kirstein , a founder of the New York City Ballet . From then on he wrote for his magazine The Dance Index and continued to run the paper independently when Kirstein was called up for military service.

He created a large network of friends, lovers and acquaintances. Most prominent among them were Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams , Gore Vidal , Christopher Isherwood , Pavel Tchelitchew , Glenway Wescott and the visual artists Paul Cadmus and Jared French . He shared an apartment with Williams for a short time in Manhattan and wrote Windham's play You Touched Me! With him in 1942 . which was based on a short story by D. H. Lawrence . When Williams experienced greater success as a playwright, Windham found himself sidelined. The appointment that the playwright would direct the release of Windham's play The Starless Air was canceled. Windham publicly fell out with Williams in the 1970s after Williams published his memoir in 1975 . Two years later he himself published a volume with their correspondence, Tennessee Williams' Letters to Donald Windham, 1940-1965 . Williams later falsely claimed that this was done without his permission, but could not get his way in court. In a foreword, Windham wrote about his ex-boyfriend that he was "the rarest, most intoxicating, the most memorable flower that has blossomed in my garden of good and evil". The New York Times reviewer, Robert Brustein, wrote: "If revenge is a dish that tastes best cold, then Donald Windham has certainly fixed himself a satisfying frozen dinner." In 1997, Windham's edition of Correspondence with Williams won the Editor's Choice award at the Lambda Literary Awards , and Windham remained friends with Capote until his death.

Windham's success as a writer did not occur in the 1950s, although he wrote for then-respected magazines such as Horizon and The Paris Review . He himself later spoke of "Hard work and no success". It wasn't until William Maxwell, an editor of the New Yorker , published some of Windham's autobiographical smaller papers, that the tide turned. This resulted in the prose volume Emblems of Conduct in 1964 .

“I disagree with the advice 'Write about what you know'. Write about what you need to know, in an effort to understand. "

“I disagree with the advice of 'write what you know about'. Write about what you need to know in order to understand it. "

- Donald Windham : New York Times obituary, June 4, 2010

Windham's debut novel The Dog Star (1950) is about a young man from the South, which is plunged into despair when his best friend suicide commits. The novel was highly regarded by André Gide and Thomas Mann . In Thomas Mann's diaries from 1950 and 1951 there are laudatory entries for “The Dog Star”; Windham and Mann also exchanged letters. EM Forster wrote the foreword to his short story collection "The Warm Country" (1962). Other short stories (such as "The Hitchhiker" and "The Kelly boys") published Windham only as private prints. The Hero Continues (1960) is about an ambitious playwright on the Broadway theater scene. Above all, his experiences with Tennessee Williams are processed in it. The following novel, Two People (1965) is about a love affair between a New York stock trader, whose wife has left him, and a 17-year-old Italian in Rome. The book Tanaquil (1972) was inspired by the biography of his friend, photographer George Platt Lynes and is considered a key novel about the New York of the 1950s. Lost Friendships , a memory book about his friendship with Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, was published in 1987. Homosexuality is a major theme in his work. Windham's longtime partner, Sandy Campbell, died in 1988. At the age of 89, the writer died on May 31, 2010 in his Manhattan home.

Windham – Campbell Literature Prize

Since 2013, the Windham – Campbell Literature Prize, endowed with US $ 165,000, has been awarded annually in six to nine categories. It is one of the most highly endowed literary prizes in the world. Windham suggested the award while he was still alive. The high prize money comes from his estate.

Works (selection)

His books have been translated and licensed in several countries, including France, Germany and Portugal.

Novels
  • Stone in the hourglass. 1981.
  • The Dog Star. 1950.
  • The Hero Continues. 1960.
  • Two people. 1965.
    • Two humans. Novel. (From the American English by Alexander Konrad), Lilienfeld Verlag, Düsseldorf 2010, ISBN 978-3-940357-17-5 .
  • Tanaquil. 1972.
Short story volumes
  • The warm country. 1962.
Dramas
  • You touched me!
memoirs
  • Emblems of Conduct. 1964.
  • Tennessee Williams' Letters to Donald Windham, 1940-1965. 1977.
  • Footnote to a Friendship. Stamperia Valdonega, Verona 1983.
  • Lost Friendships: a memoir of Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and others. 1987.

literature

  • Bruce Kellner: Donald Windham: A Bio-Bibliography . Greenwood Press, 1991, ISBN 0-313-26857-6 .

Web links

Individual references, comments

  1. ↑ a b c New York Times, June 4, 2010: Donald Windham, Novelist and Memoirist, Dies at 89
  2. ↑ Internet Broadway Database (IBDb) entry of the piece
  3. ↑ The Telegraph, July 16, 2010: Obituary for Windham
  4. ↑ a b c Obituary in The Independent, Ireland
  5. ↑ Deutschlandradio Kultur from June 15, 2011: Enthusiastic desire review by Ingo Arend about two people.
personal data
SURNAME Windham, Donald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Atlanta , Georgia, USA
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 2010
Place of death New York City