American writer from South Carolina, Dorothy Allison has passed away, she was 75 years old. Dorothy was a model of courage and tenacity, genius and grit. Her writing was formative for as songwriters. Dorothy Allison’s writing centres on social struggle, sexual assault, child abuse, feminism, and lesbianism. Allison, a self-identified lesbian femme, received numerous prizes for her work, including several Lambda Literary prizes.
Allison has received numerous prizes for her writing, including three Lambda Literary prizes. Allison was elected to the Southern Writers Fellowship in 2014. Allison advocates for safer sex and is involved in feminist and lesbian societies. In 1981, she and Jo Arnone cofounded the Lesbian Sex Mafia, the “oldest continuously running women’s BDSM support and education group in the country”.
Dorothy Allison Writing Career
Allison’s work explores social struggle, child and sexual abuse, women, lesbianism, feminism, and family. Mélanie Grué, a French literary researcher, calls Allison’s work a glorification of “the vilified transgressive lesbian body.” Grué also mentions Allison’s ability “to make [lesbian] desire and pleasure public” in her writing, which contrasts with second-wave feminist views on “correct expressions” of sexuality.
Allison’s debut novel, the semi-autobiographical Bastard Out of Carolina (1992), was among five candidates for the 1992 National Book Award. James Baldwin, Jewelle Gomez, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, Flannery O’Connor, and Bertha Harris are some of her influences. Allison claims that Morrison’s The Bluest Eye inspired her to write about incest. Allison first encountered Lorde during a poetry event in the early 1980s. She read what would become her short story, “River of Names,” and Lorde came up to her and told her she just had to write.
