Will Aitken
Will Aitken | |
|---|---|
| Born | Terre Haute, Indiana |
| Occupation | Film critic, novelist |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Alma mater | McGill University |
| Notable works | Terre Haute (1989) |
Will Aitken is an American-Canadian novelist, journalist and film critic.[1][2] Originally from Terre Haute, Indiana, he has been based in Montreal, Quebec since moving to that city to attend McGill University in 1972.
In Montreal, he was a cofounder of the city's first LGBT bookstore, Librairie L'Androgyne, in 1973.[1] He has also worked as an arts journalist and film critic for a variety of media outlets,[3] including the CBC, the BBC, NPR, The Globe and Mail, Maclean's, The Paris Review, Christopher Street and the National Post.
He published his first novel, Terre Haute, in 1989.[4] He has since published three other novels.[3]
He taught film studies at Dawson College in Montreal.[1] In 2011, he published Death in Venice: A Queer Film Classic, a critical analysis of Luchino Visconti's 1971 film Death in Venice, as part of Arsenal Pulp Press's Queer Film Classics series.[1]
His 2018 book, Antigone Undone: Juliette Binoche, Anne Carson, Ivo Van Hove and the Art of Resistance, was published by University of Regina Press. The book was a finalist for the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.[5]
Works
Novels
- Terre Haute. 1989, ISBN 978-0385298728.
- A Visit Home. 1993, ISBN 978-0671747077.
- Realia. 2000, ISBN 978-0679310402.
- The Swells. 2021, ISBN 978-1487009694.
Non-fiction
- Death in Venice: A Queer Film Classic. 2011, ISBN 978-1551524184.
- Antigone Undone: Juliette Binoche, Anne Carson, Ivo Van Hove, and the Art of Resistance. 2018, ISBN 978-0889775213.
Anthologies
- Madder Love: Queer Men and the Precincts of Surrealism (ed. Peter Dubé). 2008.
References
- ^ a b c d Richard Burnett, "Montreal author Will Aitken revives Death in Venice" Archived 2012-06-15 at the Wayback Machine. Xtra!, January 26, 2012.
- ^ W. H. New, Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. University of Toronto Press, 2002. ISBN 0802007619. Chapter "Gay and Lesbian Writing", pp. 418-422.
- ^ a b "Aitken goes big on Japan". Eye Weekly, September 21, 2000.
- ^ Gregory Woods, A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition. Yale University Press, 1999. ISBN 9780300080889.
- ^ "Writers' Trust short lists reveal familiar faces". The Globe and Mail, September 26, 2018.