Guillaume Dustan (November 28, 1965, Paris – October 3, 2005) was an 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 ...

French writer. Dustan's 1998 novel, ''In My Room'', brought the author instant notoriety for his masterful use of

autofiction In literary criticism, autofiction is a form of fictionalized autobiography. Autofiction combines two mutually inconsistent narrative forms, namely autobiography and fiction. An author may decide to recount their life in the third person, to mod ...

and depiction of gay glamour and romance in mid-1990s Paris.

Early life and education

Dustan was born William Baranès in France in 1965. He graduated from the

École nationale d'administration The École nationale d'administration (generally referred to as ENA, en, National School of Administration) was a French ''grande école'', created in 1945 by President of France, President Charles de Gaulle and principal author of the Constitu ...

and worked as an administrative judge before turning to writing. He used the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

Guillaume Dustan from 1995 onwards.

Work

Dustan's first novel, ''Dans ma chambre (In My Room)'', brought him immense fame in France for his ambitious portrayal of gay life in a Paris celebrated for its sensual pleasures and haunted by the AIDS crisis.Owen Heathcote, 'DUSTAN, GUILLAUME', in ''Encyclopedia of Erotic Literature'', ed. Gaetan Brulotte and John Phillips, New York: Routledge, 2006, pp. 386-287 He also edited ''Le Rayon Gay'', a collection of books, for Balland. He was also a

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

producer and he films he has produced include ''Nous'' and ''Back''. In 2004, Dustan played a role in the film ''

Process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...

'' written & directed by C. S. Leigh. He was the employee who checks

Béatrice Dalle Béatrice Dalle (née Cabarrou; December 19, 1964) is a French actress. Biography Dalle was born in Brest, Finistère, France, as Béatrice Cabarrou. In 1985, she married the painter Jean-François Dalle, whom she divorced in 1988. Working as ...

into the hotel where she later takes her own life. The film also stars

Guillaume Depardieu Guillaume Jean Maxime Antoine Depardieu (7 April 1971 – 13 October 2008) was a French actor, winner of a César Award, and the oldest child of Gérard Depardieu. Early life Depardieu was the son of actor Gérard Depardieu and his first wife, a ...

. Dustan's writing has been compared to

Renaud Camus Renaud Camus (; ; born Jean Renaud Gabriel Camus on 10 August 1946) is a French novelist, Conspiracy theory, conspiracy theorist and White nationalism, white nationalist writer. He is the inventor of the "Great Replacement", a Far-right politic ...

Marguerite Duras Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (, 4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras (), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film ''Hiroshima mon amour'' (1959) ea ...

Hervé Guibert Hervé Guibert (14 December 1955 – 27 December 1991) was a French writer and photographer. The author of numerous novels and autobiographical studies, he played a considerable role in changing French public attitudes to HIV/AIDS. He was a ...

, Celine's ''

Journey to the End of the Night ''Journey to the End of the Night'' (french: Voyage au bout de la nuit, 1932) is the first novel by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. This semi-autobiographical work follows the adventures of Ferdinand Bardamu in the World War I, colonial Africa, the Un ...

'',

Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier ...

's '' Long Day's Journey into Night'', and

Bret Easton Ellis Bret Easton Ellis (born March 7, 1964) is an American author, screenwriter, short-story writer, and director. Ellis was first regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack and is a self-proclaimed satirist whose trademark technique, as a w ...

. Critic

Bruce Hainley Bruce Hainley is an American critic, writer and poet. He is the professor of Criticism and Theory at the MFA program at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and the Roski School of Fine Arts, University of Southern California. ...

writes that Dustan celebrated Duras for her liberating sense of abjection and "alcoholizations of the first person," including her “bad French, her badly written books of the ’eighties and ’nineties.” Dustan's first three novels, ''In My Room,'' ''I'm Going Out Tonight,'' and ''Stronger Than Me,'' published in France between 1996 and 1998, were re-released in English by Semiotext(e) in 2021. Edited by Thomas Clerc and translated by Daniel Maroun, the novels follow the narrator's sexual journeys Paris He is a contemporary to gay writers like Herve Guibert,

Dennis Cooper Dennis Cooper (born January 10, 1953) is an American novelist, poet, critic, editor and performance artist. He is best known for the ''George Miles Cycle'', a series of five semi-autobiographical novels published between 1989 and 2000 and describ ...

Kevin Killian Kevin Killian (December 24, 1952 – June 15, 2019) was an American poet, author, editor, and playwright primarily of LGBT literature. ''My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer'', which he co-edited with Peter Gizzi, wo ...

, and

Gary Indiana Gary Indiana (b. 1950 as Gary Hoisington in Derry, New Hampshire) is an American writer, actor, artist, and cultural critic. He served as the art critic for the ''Village Voice'' weekly newspaper from 1985 to 1988. Indiana is best known for his ...

. Dustan was a proponent of

barebacking Bareback sex is physical sexual activity, especially sexual penetration, without the use of a condom. The topic primarily concerns anal sex between men who have sex with men without the use of a condom, and may be distinguished from unprotected se ...

and at loggerheads with

ACT UP AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, ...

Death

Dustan died of an accidental drug overdose on October 3, 2005. He is buried in

Montparnasse Cemetery Montparnasse Cemetery (french: link=no, Cimetière du Montparnasse) is a cemetery in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, in the city's 14th arrondissement. The cemetery is roughly 47 acres and is the second largest cemetery in Paris. The cemetery ...

(division 29).

Bibliography

* ''Dans ma chambre'', (tr. ''

In My Room "In My Room" is a song written by Brian Wilson and Gary Usher for the American rock band the Beach Boys. It was released on their 1963 album '' Surfer Girl''. It was also released as the B-side of the " Be True to Your School" single. The single ...

'',

Serpent's Tail Serpent's Tail is London-based independent publishing firm founded in 1986 by Pete Ayrton. It specialises in publishing work in translation, particularly European crime fiction. In January 2007, it was bought by a British publisher Profile Books ...

and

Semiotext(e) Semiotext(e) is an independent publisher of critical theory, fiction, philosophy, art criticism, activist texts and non-fiction. History Founded in 1974, ''Semiotext(e)'' began as a journal that emerged from a semiotics reading group led by Sylv ...

), 1996 * ''Je sors ce soir'', 1997 * ''Plus fort que moi'', 1997 * ''Nicolas Pages'', 1999 (winner of the

Prix de Flore The Prix de Flore is a French literary prize founded in 1994 by Frédéric Beigbeder. The aim of the prize is to reward youthful authors and is judged by a panel of journalists. It is awarded yearly in November, at the Café de Flore in Paris. The ...

) * ''Génie divin'', 2001 * ''LXIR'', 2002 * ''Dernier Roman'', 2004 * ''Premier Essai'', 2005

Reedition

* ''Oeuvres 1'', 2013 *:Includes ''Dans ma chambre'', ''Je sors ce soir'' and ''Plus fort que moi'' (all three commented by

Thomas Clerc Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

) *:English: ''The Works of Guillaume Dustan, Volume 1'', tr. Daniel Maroun, forthcoming May 2021

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dustan, Guillaume 1965 births 2005 deaths École nationale d'administration alumni 20th-century French novelists 21st-century French novelists French gay writers French LGBT novelists French LGBT rights activists Writers from Paris French male essayists French male novelists 20th-century French male writers 21st-century French male writers 20th-century French essayists 20th-century French LGBT people 21st-century French LGBT people