Unconquered Peaks

Polari: a language unlike others you’ll have heard of. This language, composed of subculture dialects, was born in the 18th and 19th century, and was used by individuals across the LGBT + spectrum to communicate while avoiding persecution and mainstream understanding. In this way, it became a crucial element of queer subculture between the 1930s and 70s, when it was most widely used.

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin came as a surprise to many of his contemporary readers, after all he was a writer known for his work on the African-American experience, and this was a book about a white American man in Paris. The book ,nevertheless, was (mostly) well received and remains a classic text in the LGBTQ+ canon, though Baldwin himself said that the story was “not so much about homosexuality”.