The best literature is always the ones where the characters come alive, they speak to us, touch our inner cords, and in turn, we live their lives vicariously. Perhaps, that’s where lies the real significance of women’s literature, black literature, or queer literature. That’s why Edmund White’s stories of gay boyhood evoke such empathy in our hearts, and Forster’s Maurice touches us with his heartbreak and hope.
As gay readers become more confident and open in India, writers will be more emboldened to experiment with new themes. We’re already seeing signs of that happening with a motley bunch of gay themed books coming out of Indian writers.
When we, at Pink Pages decided to come out with our first queer literature themed issue, we had many apprehensions in our mind. But the overwhelming response allayed most of the fears we had. Only a very small percentage of the entries we received, have been edited and reproduced here, but we were all struck by the amazing display of talent by our very young readers.
Apart from that, this issue also focuses on IT city Bangalore- a city that we’d called the ‘potential gay capital of India’ in one of our previous issues. As young professionals from across the country converge in this increasingly cosmopolitan and liberal city, the closely knit LGBT community expresses itself with more confident and colourful tones than ever before. Last month’s ‘Karnataka Queer Habba’ proved just that. Enjoy our photo features from these events here!
Udayan
Senior Editor
