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60-730: John Roman Baker is a British writer and theatre director. In 1975, his first play Limitations launched the first season of the Gay Sweatshop Theatre company. In 1989, his play Crying Celibate Tears was presented at the Sussex Aids Centre) within the context of the Brighton Festival. A 'festival within a festival', staged at the Sussex Aids Centre, also included work by Philip Core , Peter Burton and Neil Bartlett . Crying Celibate Tears received critical acclaim from

120-472: A "mystical experience" in 1934. He visited the US again in the early 1930s, beginning and abandoning work on a novel set in the 19th-century American South. In 1938 he began publishing his journals, which he edited extensively to suppress accounts of his and others' sexual adventures and opinions he had expressed more freely in private than in public. He had described the problem in his journal in 1931: "This journal

180-403: A New York boutique, illustrated rather outré books published in limited editions, and worked on an extreme persona. He was untypical only in his lack of interest in drugs. As someone for whom hallucinatory powers were already part of his armoury, and for whom work is of primary importance, chemical stimulae appeared not only unnecessary, but a threat to creation." Following Harvard he attended

240-561: A barbed wit, an utter lack of sentimentality and a refusal to shy away from unpalatable truths ... the one horror which is happily absent being political correctness. ... In short, this is the real world: a humorous, harrowing, heartening world, and one which remains engrossing for the entire six hours of its length. ... Seen as a whole, the Trilogy is an overwhelming experience." At the 1993 Edinburgh Fringe, Aaron Hicklin wrote for The Independent : "Aids Positive Underground are no sissies. "Easy"

300-459: A biography of Francis of Assisi , produced a four-volume autobiography, and for decades maintained a daily journal that he edited and published in nineteen volumes. The posthumous publication of the unexpurgated text of his journals presented a different version of his personality and sexuality, revealed details of the lives of many of his prominent contemporaries, and documented the gay subculture of 20th-century France. When elected to membership in

360-513: A chapel designed for him in St. Egid Church, Klagenfurt , Austria . The chapel decoration includes a painting Green commissioned, Die Emmausjünger ( The Disciples at Emmaus ). His tombstone names him "Julian", using the original English spelling rather than the French "Julien" by which he was known. After Green's death, his adopted son Éric Jourdan (1938–2015) served as executor of his estate. From him

420-636: A child I could not bring myself to believe that English was a real language". Among the many honors he received were the Harper Prize for Memories of happy days (1942); election to the Bavarian Academy (1950) and the academies of Mainz, Mannheim and the Royal Academy of Belgium; the Prince Pierre of Monaco Literary Prize for the entirety of his work (1951); the national grand prize for letters (1966);

480-594: A chronicle of his literary and religious life, and a unique window on the artistic and literary scene in Paris over a span of eighty years. The posthumous republication of the full text of his journals, from which Green had cut half the text, demonstrated that Green's version had included about half of his journals' content and had suppressed details of his and others' sexual behavior and candid opinions. He published four autobiographical volumes between 1963 and 1974. The first three volumes, published in 1963, 1964, and 1966, covered

540-720: A commentator on the BBC Radio 4 programme Kaleidoscope. Core died of AIDS in November 1989 at the Westminster Hospital in London. In a catalogue of an exhibition of his work, Core wrote: "I am not a great artist, only someone who loves painting, drawing and making things with his hands above all else; someone who has, by some curious gift of heredity, become possessed of articulacy and intransigence in equal degree; someone who knows what they love and feels no shame about it." His work

600-458: A couple for most of the inter-war years; theirs was an open relationship and each had multiple sex partners, whom they occasionally shared. They frequented the popular gay clubs of Paris. They traveled together throughout Europe, Tunisia, and the US in the 1920s and 1930s, and spent months together in London in 1936 and 1937. When France fell to the Nazis in 1940, Saint-Jean was deputy chief of staff to

660-577: A cousin in Baltimore. In 1942, he was mobilized and sent to New York City to work at the United States Office of War Information . For almost a year, five times a week, he broadcast to France as part of the radio broadcasts of Voice of America , working with such notables as André Breton . Green returned to France in late September 1945. He found that a friend had safely stored his papers and apartment furnishings, including family heirlooms. While in

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720-463: A jurist of some distinction, supported the publication of the unexpurgated text of Green's journals and the first volume appeared in September 2019. The publishing program respected Green's restriction that sensitive material not appear until fifty years had passed. Included were "hundreds of pages, with countless pornographic and vulgar passages crossed out", with as much as half the material published for

780-592: A mural for the Ritz hotel depicting a range of guests over the 75-year history of the hotel. He became the photography critic for The Independent , and wrote also number of obituaries for the newspaper, including those for Robert Mapplethorpe and Jean-Michel Basquiat . 1984 saw the publication by him of two books: Camp: The Lie That Tells The Truth , and The Original Eye: arbiters of twentieth-century taste . His encyclopaedic knowledge of lesser-known figures in nineteenth and twentieth century culture led to him becoming

840-571: A novel published only last year and set in the antebellum South?" In 1993 Green published–again only in English–a collection of short pieces: The Apprentice Writer: Essays . All were originally written in English between 1920 and 1946, the oldest being the short story "The Apprentice Psychiatrist". His subjects included the Paris literary scene before World War II and the relationship between language and personality. Of growing up bi-lingual Green wrote: "as

900-542: A second lieutenant in an artillery unit until 1919. After the war, he spent three years from 1919 to 1922 studying at the University of Virginia at the invitation of his mother's brother Walter Hartridge. While there he wrote his first fiction, a short story in English. He returned to France in 1922. After briefly exploring a career as a painter, he turned to writing in French and had a few short reviews and sketches published in periodicals. His first published work in French

960-510: A series of modern historical gay fiction, The Nick & Greg Books . The books chart the lives of two gay teenagers, Nick and Greg, who meet as teens in Brighton in the late 1950s. The books chart their lives and relationships in Brighton, London and Paris from the 1950s into the 21st Century. The books chronicle not only the massive social changes that occur, but also key literary and cultural influences. In August 2018 and November 2019 he attended

1020-662: A side-by-side English–French format that facilitated direct comparison. Playing on his bilingual abilities and French-American identity, the volume identifies its author as "Julian Green" and its translator as "Julien Green". A close examination of the texts suggests that Green adopted a different voice in each language, evidenced by "a plethora of semantic discrepancies". He re-wrote as his translated. Several of Green's works of fiction have been adapted into films: Adrienne Mesurat (1953, television film), starring Anouk Aimée ; Leviathan  [ fr ] (1962 film), starring Louis Jourdan and Lilli Palmer , for which Green wrote

1080-518: A vein of poetry continues in his plays and novels. In 1970 he moved from Paris back to England. His poetic novel The Dark Antagonist was published by the Unicorn Bookshop, Brighton in 1973. In response, the French writer Julien Green wrote "John Roman Baker … a very talented writer, author of a remarkable and moving book: The Dark Antagonist , which I have just read with admiration. I don’t believe I have read anything like it." John Roman Baker

1140-504: Is in the collection of the Arts Council of Great Britain . Julien Green Julien Green (originally "Julian Hartridge Green", 6 September 1900 – 13 August 1998) often Julian Green , was an American writer who lived most of his life in France and wrote mostly in French and only occasionally in English. Over a long and prolific career, he authored novels and essays, several plays, and

1200-479: Is nevertheless compelling, as Dostoevsky's fiction is", though he noted Green achieved this "in spite of an uncertain design and its disregard for all ordinary realism". Between 1963 and 1974 he published four volumes of memoirs covering the first two decades of his life, the years before he began to keep the daily journals that he had been publishing since 1938. In the third volume, Terre lointaine (1966), he described how he became aware of his homosexuality while at

1260-621: Is truly the bottle [thrown] in the sea. Its nature makes it almost unpublishable in my lifetime." Two volumes appeared before the Nazi invasion of France forced him into exile. In July 1940, after France's surrender, he fled Paris for Pau in southwest France near the Spanish border. He obtained visas for himself and his partner Robert de Saint-Jean for Portugal and they sailed together on the Excambion and reached New York on 15 July. He stayed at first with

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1320-483: Is uncomfortable viewing, often disturbing, and ugly to watch, considerably more than a safe-sex message. It is about love and dignity, loss and anger." Performed plays include: Adapted work by other writers: Unperformed plays include: His work has been produced in many countries. From 1990–1996 the Brighton and Edinburgh Festivals often saw the first performances of his new plays. In 1990, his play The Ice Pick won

1380-480: The New York Times used "Julian", and he was immediately recognized in the US as an important new voice. In 1928 Louis Kronenberger wrote: "After six months Julian Green's Avarice House [ Mont-Cinère ] still remains vivid in the memory of this reviewer.... One feel safe in saying Julian Green is an important novelist." His attachment to Catholicism weakened during the 1920s, though he asserted it again after

1440-594: The Académie française in 1971, he was the first non-French national to join its ranks. He was the recipient of many awards and one of the few writers to have his collected works published in Gallimard 's Pleiade library during his lifetime. Julian Hartridge Green was born to American parents in Paris on 6 September 1900. He was the namesake of an ancestor on his mother's side, Julian Hartridge (1829–1879), who served as member of

1500-559: The Green-Meldrim House in Savannah, the home of Green's paternal grandfather, bought a collection of furniture, ceramics, silver, family photographs, and a ledger. Jourdan also tried to restrict the publication of some of Green's work, protecting his reputation with a new "prudishness" even more than Green had in censoring his own journals for publication. After Éric Jourdan's death in 2015, Jourdan's executor Tristan Gervais de Lafond,

1560-846: The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford, and then the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in Florence . In 1975, in his mid-twenties, he settled permanently in London, living in a flat in Elephant and Castle that was painted completely black, before moving to a spacious apartments in Holland Park . It was an economically depressed period in the UK, but Core managed to gain some income contributing art work to gay magazines, and via private commissions. These included

1620-464: The "Zap" Award for best theatre at the Brighton Festival jointly with the Satirikon theatre of Moscow. The controversy and opposition towards his work and that of Aids Positive Underground Theatre, garnered support and friendship from other artists, notably Howard Barker, Lindsay Kemp and Derek Jarman.He was the first dramatist to adapt the work of American artist David Wojnarowicz for the stage. Close to

1680-585: The Brighton press, The Guardian and Plays and Players and was the launching pad for Aids Positive Underground Theatre , the company founded by Baker as a positive cultural response. In June 1992, Michael Arditti , wrote in Plays International that: "...in England too the theatrical response [to AIDS] has been maturing ... and has come of age with John Roman Baker's "Crying Celibate Tears Trilogy" ... The keynotes of Mr Baker's writing are already in evidence;

1740-523: The Charity of Joan of Arc and Basic Verities, Men and Saints . In 1947 he worked on a screenplay for a film about Ignatius of Loyola , intended for director Robert Bresson , but he failed to complete it. His 1960 novel Chaque homme dans sa nuit , set largely in New York, appeared that same year in a translation by Green's sister Anne Green . Henri Peyre wrote of it with enthusiasm: "Strange and tense, it

1800-400: The French minister of information and his writing had made him a personal enemy of German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop . Green arranged for him to gain entry to Portugal and then transfer to the US. In his later years, Green adopted as his son Éric Jourdan , a gay novelist, who acted as the executor of Green's estate until his own death in 2015. He began work on a novel set in

1860-902: The Grand Prix for Literature from the French Academy (1970); election to the United States Academy of Arts and Letters (1972); the German Universities Prize (1973); the Polish Grand Prize for Literature (1988); the Cavour Prize, Grand Prize for Literature (1991); and the Theater Prize of the Universities of Bologna and Forli. Green died in Paris on 13 August 1998, shortly before his 98th birthday. His remains were entombed in

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1920-711: The House of Representatives of the Confederate States of America and then as a Democratic Representative from Georgia to the US Congress for four years; Julien's parents settled in Paris in 1893. His mother Mary Adelaide née Hartridge was from Savannah, his father Edward from Virginia. Toward the end of his life Green told an interviewer that when his father's employer, Southern Cotton Oil Company , allowed him to work in Germany or France, Julien's mother urged they settle in France on

1980-652: The Knives was performed at the 1993 Brighton Festival with the role of David Wojnarowicz played by actor Simon Merrells . In 1994 the success in Edinburgh of In One Take led to performances at Teatri di Vita, Bologna, Italy. Since then, his work has continued to be popular in Italy and has been seen in Florence, Modena, Forlí, L'Aquila, Reggio Emilia, Rome and Milan. His most popular work The Ice Pick has been staged on multiple occasions in

2040-569: The Salon du Livre Gay (Gay Book Fair) in Paris to present The Nick & Greg Books and launch the fourth book in the series Greg in Paris as well as the limited edition hardcover Le Far West . In June 2020 a new novel entitled 2020 was published. The book, written immediately before the Covid-19 lockdowns began in France and the United Kingdom, presents two characters, Alex and Paul, seeking to defy

2100-487: The South in 1991 and 1993. The third and final volume, entitled Dixie in both languages, continued the action to the autumn of 1862 and was published in both French and English versions in 1995. In France, both during his life and today, Green's reputation rests principally not on his novels, but on his journals, which spanned the years 1919 to 1998, and which he edited and published in nineteen volumes. These volumes provide

2160-540: The UK and Italy as well as in the US at the Celebration Theatre , Los Angeles in 1993. He moved to Amsterdam , the Netherlands in 1997, where he continued the work of Aputheatre until 2008. During this period the focus of his work was mainly focused on the personal and social effects of pan-European migration following the collapse of communism. In 1999 he updated and reworked The Ice Pick for 2 characters under

2220-464: The US he wrote his first work of any length in English. His memoir of childhood Memories of Happy Days was called "one of the most innately beautiful and subtly communicative books to be written by any American about France". He gave talks at Mills College and Goucher College , and he contributed articles to Harper's Magazine , Commonweal , and The Atlantic Monthly . He also translated two works by Charles Péguy into English: The Mystery of

2280-412: The US. By the time his autobiography began to appear in English in 1993, an American reviewer could write: "Julian Green may be the one most difficult for American readers to place. He's English, isn't he? At least, his books often turn up in the mustier corners of British secondhand bookstores. Or perhaps he's French. That's the rumor anyway. Much acclaimed in Paris, and probably long dead. But wait, here's

2340-481: The University of Virginia, experienced his first crush, and gained second-hand experience from a similarly inclined fellow student. In the fourth volume, Jeunesse (1974), he depicted himself in college: "No one was ever so petrified by a Medusa's head as I was by what struck me as a perfect young [man's] face." He portrayed himself throughout his life as a chaste homosexual whose relationship with his lifelong companion

2400-521: The age of 20 he moved to Paris, where for several years he worked at the British Institute . His poetry was encouraged by the then director of the Institute, Francis Scarfe . Later, in 1974 a volume of his poetry Poèmes à Tristan was published in French by Gérard Oberlé , translated by Françoise du Chaxel, and with an introduction by Jeanne Fayard. He has always considered himself foremost a poet, and

2460-1034: The coming crisis. Philip Core Core grew up in New Orleans, the son of a well-to-do family. At just seven he won the Vieux Carré Open Artists Competition. He was sent to a military academy, and from 1963 to the Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts . He attended Harvard University , where he won a number of art and literature prizes. As a schoolboy he self-published a booklet of drawings Palm Fronde Alphabet. An interest in Aubrey Beardsley and fin de siècle artists and writers, led to him spending time in Paris working with Philippe Jullian on his book The Symbolists , before returning to Harvard to complete an honours thesis on Belgian symbolist Fernand Khnopff . He graduated in 1973. Under

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2520-415: The dialogue; La Dame de pique  [ fr ] (1965 film); Adrienne Mésurat (1969, German television film); Mont-Cinère (1970, television film), with a screenplay by Robert de Saint-Jean; Si j'étais vous  [ fr ] (1971, television film), starring Patrick Dewaere . The stage play South was adapted for a British television production in 1959, starring Peter Wyngarde . It

2580-412: The first time, sexual matters as well as assessments of colleagues and literary figures, as well as racist and anti-semitic statements. It transformed Green's public image: his homosexuality was never a secret but Green had always indicated it was "under control" or channeled into platonic relationships. The full text records such a variety of sexual encounters that it documents gay life in the years between

2640-526: The grounds that the French, having recently suffered defeat in the Franco-Prussian War , would prove sympathetic to Americans who identified with the defeated US Confederacy. Julien was the youngest of seven children born to Protestant parents. He was educated in French schools, including the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly . In his early years his mother was the center of his emotional life and he

2700-519: The other off a train at Brighton station . As a result of this, Whitehead was immediately fired by his employer British Home Stores . A national outcry galvanised the gay rights movement, led by CHE (The Campaign for Homosexual Equality) and GLF (Gay Liberation Front) . In 1997 he left England for Amsterdam , where he was given the freedom to create and direct new work at the theatre in the former COC Amsterdam building on Rozenstraat until its closure in 2007. In 2014 he returned to England and created

2760-470: The pre-Civil War American South while visiting the US in 1933. He abandoned the two chapters he had completed upon learning that Margaret Mitchell 's Gone With the Wind was nearing publication. His first volume set in 1850–54, Les pays lointains only appeared in 1987. The second set bringing the story to 1861, Les étoiles du Sud , in 1989. They were published in English as The Distant Lands and The Stars of

2820-471: The pseudonym Féllippé Fecit, he produced a series of erotic drawings for the poet John Glassco for his book Squire Hardman , and in 1968 in the Japanese style for The Temple of Pederasty , a free adaption by Glassco of a work by Japanese expatriate writer Ken Sato. Of this time, George Melly wrote of Core: "an exaggerated child of that extraordinary decade, he made experimental films, bought and designed for

2880-760: The title Heroes . Heroes was toured by Aputheatre around the Netherlands before being performed in Warsaw as part of the 1st Polish Gay Pride festival. The Prostitution Plays was premiered for Warsaw Gay Pride in 2000 and in 2001 his play Sexually Speaking 1+1 was presented in Kyiv, Ukraine. Following its Amsterdam premiere, his play Prisoners of Sex was translated into Italian by Antonio Serrano as Prigionieri del Sesso and has been performed in Milan and Rome. Published works include: John Roman Baker spent his formative years in London . At

2940-431: The travel genre was published as Paris . An American bi-lingual French/English edition followed in 1991. Its 19 short chapters offered remembrances; it was less a travel guide than "a reflection and an exercise in introspection". Between 1987 and 1993 he published a trilogy of novels set in the 19th-century American South, a project he had long postponed. His longevity and work in different genres complicated his image in

3000-506: The world wars. One reviewer wrote: "We knew he was homosexual; we didn't know to what extent." Another noted that Green's crude descriptions shocked less than the quality of the sex: not satisfying but "angry" and "haughty". In the Catholic Herald , Benjamin Ivry advised Green's admirers that Green's "candor" might surprise, but the battle Green fought between the sensual and the spiritual

3060-545: The years 1900 to 1922, with the second and third volumes devoted to just the last six of those years. They dramatized his childhood and the years before he began keeping his journals. The first volume exploring "faith, love and the nature of home and memory", focused on his mother while presenting a self-portrait of "fluid contradictions", "ascetic in his aspirations but frankly alive to every sensual stimulus". Green ordinarily wrote in French and rarely in English. A notable exception

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3120-421: Was "enthusiastic" to publish his third, Adrienne Mesurat , a few months later, seeing in it "an interior power, a rectitude, and a profundity that are admirable". Their relationship gave Green a powerful critic and supporter, a correspondent and friend until Maritain's death in 1973. About this time his French publishers identified him as "Julien", using the French spelling of his first name. His US publishers and

3180-546: Was "not an unstable position, but an irrevocable dignity". His resignation was not accepted and he was not replaced until after his death. In 1975, the Pleiade library began republishing several volumes of Green's work, an honor rarely accorded a living writer. In 1976, a collection of "articles and lecture notes" written by Green in the U.S. during World War II was published–only in English–as Memories of Evil Days . It

3240-599: Was "platonic". Numerous Catholic prelates expressed their admiration for this "model of righteousness". Green was elected to succeed to François Mauriac 's chair in the Académie française on 3 June 1971, the first member not a French citizen. He was received and delivered his inaugural lecture on 16 November 1972. In 1996, he caused a minor scandal by resigning from the Académie, disavowing any interest in honors and describing himself as "American, exclusively" ( americain, exclusivement ). The Académie responded that membership

3300-538: Was active in the Gay Liberation Front in Brighton and participated in the organization's pioneering "Gay Day" in 1972 and first Gay Pride March in 1973. Unwelcome notoriety was achieved when in 1976 he appeared with Tony Whitehead (later to become the first chairperson of the Terence Higgins Trust ) in a Southern Television program about Gay Rights. They were pictured together kissing as one of them met

3360-465: Was partly a memoir, but included reflections on "the links between language-usage and the creative process". In March 1983, his first work for the stage, Sud , premiered to mixed reviews, though the public supported it, as did some writers. Set during the American Civil War, a young officer's life is transformed when he encounters a handsome teenage boy. In 1984, Green's personal contribution to

3420-603: Was raised in her traditional Protestant home. She died in 1914, and Green became a Roman Catholic in 1916. In 1917, still only 16, he volunteered as an ambulance driver in the American Field Service . When his age was discovered his enlistment was annulled. He immediately signed up for a six-month term of service with an ambulance unit of the American Red Cross . In 1918 he enlisted in the French Army and served as

3480-499: Was the Pamphlet contre les catholiques de France , which appeared under the pseudonym Théophile Delaporte. It criticized his fellow French Catholics for their complacency in failing to promote their faith energetically. He launched his career as a novelist with Mont-Cinère in 1926. It impressed Jacques Maritain with its "grandeur", marked by "that uninterrupted contact with the soul" found in great writers. Green had already committed his second novel to another publisher, but Maritain

3540-486: Was the memoir Memories of Happy Days (1942), which was only published posthumously in French as Souvenirs des jours heureux (2007). He translated a few of his own works. These were: two collections of texts–essays, poems, autobiographical texts, and short stories–in both languages, Le langage et son double (1985) and L'homme et son ombre (1991); and the play Sud (1953) as South (1959). Le langage et son double (1985) (English title: Language and its Shadow ) used

3600-428: Was unchanged: "Chastity remains a cherished virtue, even if Green is unable to attain it." For many years Green was the companion of Robert de Saint-Jean , a journalist, whom he first met in November 1924. Green documented their sex life together in his journals. Though Green had described it as platonic in other writings and his own version of his journals, their relationship was intimate and physical. They lived as

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