David Robert Plante (born March 4, 1940 in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

) is an American

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

, diarist, and memoirist of both

French-Canadian French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fr ...

and

North American Indian The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the Ame ...

descent.

Life

The son of Albina Bisson and Aniclet Plante, Plante is of both

and

descent.David Plante
at

glbtq.com glbtq.com (also known as the glbtq Encyclopedia Project) was an online encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer ( GLBTQ) culture. Launched in 2003, it was edited by Claude J. Summers, emeritus professor at the University of ...

. He graduated from

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

and the

Université catholique de Louvain The Université catholique de Louvain (also known as the Catholic University of Louvain, the English translation of its French name, and the University of Louvain, its official English name) is Belgium's largest French-speaking university. It ...

.Columbia webpage
/ref> He taught creative writing at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

before retiring. His diary is kept in the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library. His papers are kept in the library of The University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Plante lives in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, Lucca, Italy, and Athens, Greece. He has American and British dual citizenship.

Work

Plante's novels examine the spiritual in a variety of contexts, but notably in the milieu of large, working-class, Catholic families of French-Canadian background. His male characters range from openly

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

to sexually ambiguous and questioning.

Philip Gambone Philip Gambone (born July 21, 1948) is an American writer who has published both fiction and non-fiction. Biography Philip Gambone was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts, on July 21, 1948. He earned a BA from Harvard College and an MA from the Epi ...

, ''Something Inside: Conversations With Gay Fiction Writers''.

University of Wisconsin Press The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic community; works of fiction, memoir and po ...

, 1999. . Plante’s work, for which he has been nominated for the

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

, includes ''Difficult Women'' (1983), a

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobi ...

of his relationships with

Jean Rhys Jean Rhys, ( ; born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a British novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she mainly resided in England, where she was sent for her ...

Sonia Orwell Sonia Mary Brownell (25 August 1918 – 11 December 1980), better known as Sonia Orwell, was the second wife of writer George Orwell. Sonia is believed to be the model for Julia, the heroine of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. Sonia collaborated with ...

, and

Germaine Greer Germaine Greer (; born 29 January 1939) is an Australian writer and public intellectual, regarded as one of the major voices of the radical feminist movement in the latter half of the 20th century. Specializing in English and women's literatu ...

and the widely praised Francoeur Trilogy--''The Family'' (1978), ''The Country'' (1980) and ''The Woods'' (1982). His most recent book ''The Pure Lover'' (2009) is a memoir of Nikos Stangos, his partner of forty years. The papers of Nikos Stangos (1936-2004), are in The Princeton University Library, the Program in Hellenic Studies. He has been published extensively including in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' and ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...

'' and various literary magazines.

Honours

Plante is a fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

. Among his other honours are: Henfield Fellow, University of East Anglia, 1975; British Arts Council Grant, 1977; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1983; American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award, 1983. He is an Ambassador for the

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

Committee of the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

. He has been a writer-in-residence at

Maxim Gorky Literature Institute The Maxim Gorky Literature Institute (russian: Литературный институт им. А. М. Горького) is an institution of higher education in Moscow. It is located at 25 Tverskoy Boulevard in central Moscow. History The insti ...

(Moscow), the

Université du Québec à Montréal The Université du Québec à Montréal (English: University of Quebec in Montreal), also known as UQAM, is a French-language public university based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest constituent element of the Université du Québe ...

Adelphi University Adelphi University is a private university in Garden City, New York. Adelphi also has centers in Manhattan, Hudson Valley, and Suffolk County. There is also a virtual, online campus for remote students. It is the oldest institution of higher ed ...

, King's College, the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, the

University of Tulsa The University of Tulsa (TU) is a private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church and the campus architectural style is predominantly Collegiate Gothic. The school traces its origin to ...

, and the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

Bibliography

*''The Ghost of Henry James'' (1970) *''Slides (novel)'' (1971) *''Relatives (novel)'' (1972) *''The Darkness of the Body'' (1974) *''Figures in Bright Air'' (1976) *''The Family'' (1978) *''The Country'' (1980) *''The Woods'' (1982) *''Difficult Women'' (1983) *''The Foreigner'' (1984) *''The Catholic'' (1986) *''My Mother's Pearl Necklace'' (1987) *''The Native'' (1987) *''The Accident'' (1991) *''Annunciation'' (1994) *''Prayer'' (1998) *''The Age of Terror'' (1999) *''American Ghosts'' (2005) *''ABC'' (2007) *''The Pure Lover'' (2009) *''Becoming a Londoner : a diary'' (2013) *''Worlds Apart: a memoir'' (2015)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Plante, David 1940 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists 21st-century LGBT people American male novelists American people of French-Canadian descent Columbia University faculty Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Writers from Rhode Island American gay writers American LGBT novelists Boston College alumni 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Novelists from New York (state)