Knowra Samuel R. Delany Samuel R. Delany Samuel R. Delany is an American science-fiction writer, literary critic, and memoirist whose work examines language, sexuality, race, and social difference.
Science fiction : A literary genre that uses imagined scientific, technological, or social changes to explore possible worlds. Delany writes within the genre while stretching its assumptions about society and language.
Babel-17 : Samuel R. Delany’s 1966 science-fiction novel about a linguist investigating a language used as a weapon. The novel makes language, thought, and political conflict the machinery of its plot.
Marilyn Hacker : An American poet and translator who was married to Samuel R. Delany from 1961 to 1980. Their marriage and artistic lives overlapped during Delany’s formative years as a writer.
Golden Age of Science Fiction : A period of science fiction, especially in the 1940s and 1950s, associated with technological problem-solving and magazine publishing. Delany’s stylistic and social experimentation departed from conventions strongly associated with this period.
New Wave science fiction : A movement that brought experimental literary techniques and social concerns into science fiction, especially during the 1960s and 1970s. Its formal experimentation shaped the literary environment of Delany’s early work.
Dhalgren : Samuel R. Delany’s 1975 novel about a drifter in the disordered city of Bellona. Its fractured narrative and unstable city make social breakdown a formal experiment.
Judy-Lynn del Rey : An American science-fiction editor who worked with Delany at Ballantine Books. Her editorial work helped bring several of his novels to a broad readership.
Hard science fiction : Science fiction that emphasizes scientific and technical plausibility in its imagined worlds. Delany’s work often gives language, culture, and social relations more weight than technical extrapolation.
Structuralism : An approach to language and culture that studies systems of relationships underlying meaning. Delany’s criticism often treats literary meaning as produced through systems and differences.
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand : Samuel R. Delany’s 1984 science-fiction novel about a man linked to a catastrophe affecting thousands of worlds. The novel builds a vast social setting around difference, intimacy, and political organization.
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