literature
Exiles of Love: LĂda MerlĂnovĂĄ and the World of the Czech Lesbian
by Carla Barrett
As part of the Czech/Slovak Literature Seminar Series at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, Professor Mark Cornwall (University of Southampton) will be giving a talk entitled “Exiles of Love (Vyhnanci lĂĄsky): LĂda MerlĂnovĂĄ and the World of the Czech Lesbian”.
Date:Â Thursday 11th December
Time: 6pm
Venue:Â UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 16 Taviton Street, London, WC1H 0BWÂ (room TBC).
All are welcome. Texts in the original language will be made available prior to the meeting; please contact Peter Zusi at p.zusi@ucl.ac.uk. Unless indicated otherwise texts do not exist in English translation.
Gay’s the Word, London’s Independent Gay & Lesbian Bookshop
by Carla Barrett
“Where can I buy literature on the LGBT theme?”
GAY’S THE WORD, London’s Independent Comprehensive Gay & Lesbian Bookshop, Russell Square, London.
 A wonderful bookstore serving the LGBT community since 1979, Gay’s The Word is the UK’s pioneering independent lesbian and gay bookshop. The bookshop was established in1979 in the historic Bloomsbury district of London. It is an independent LGBT book specialist, offering a wide choice of gay books and film that goes well beyond the mainstream. With friendly, helpful staff, the shop has a genuine community atmosphere and hosts regular book events and discussion groups.
 The author Armistead Maupin describes Gay’s The Word as “the fountainhead of queer literature in Britain.”
“Truly a fine example of how an independent bookshop should be” – Time Out
“It’s not just a bookshop, but the hub and affirmation of a whole community” – Sarah Waters
Visit the website: gaystheword.co.uk
Follow on Twitter:Â @gaystheword
âExiles of Loveâ: LĂda MerlĂnovĂĄ and the World of the Czech Lesbian
by Laurence Georgin
Homosexuality in Czech culture and society is only recently being explored by Czech historians and usually the focus is on the homosexual male. Prof Mark Cornwall’s research project focuses instead on Czech lesbians during the period 1918-1945 and especially the work of the popular (yet now largely unknown writer) LĂda MerlĂnovĂĄ.
âExiles of Loveâ: LĂda MerlĂnovĂĄ and the World of the Czech Lesbian
by Laurence Georgin
Homosexuality in Czech culture and society is only recently being explored by Czech historians and usually the focus is on the homosexual male. This research project focuses instead on Czech lesbians during the period 1918-1945 and especially the work of the popular (yet now largely unknown writer) LĂda MerlĂnovĂĄ. In 1929 she published the first lesbian novel in Czech, Exiles of Love (Vyhnanci lĂĄsky), in a print run of 4000 which quickly sold out. In the 1930s she went on to write for the homosexual journal Voice of the Sexual Minority, and to publish a series of âwomenâs novelsâ and books for adolescent girls.
The purpose of the research project is to analyse with an eye on their portrayal of lesbian identities; to set them against other âracierâ novels such as The Third Sex by Gil SedlaÄkovĂĄ (1937); and to provide a fuller picture of what it could mean to live the life of a lesbian in interwar Czechoslovakia and in the years of the Nazi Protectorate.
Since all MerlĂnovĂĄâs works were put on the Communist index in 1948, many are missing from Czech libraries, yet her writings are an undiscovered part of the âlesbian cannonâ which deserves integration into a new European history of gender and sexuality.
Contact for more information
Name: Prof Mark Cornwall
E-mail:Â J.M.Cornwall@soton.ac.uk