ABOUT THIS EVENTPublished in the US in 2021, Gay Bar: Why We Went Out scooped the National Book Critics Circle Award on its release and was soon hailed as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times. Author Jeremy Atherton Lin is now coming to Passa Porta to join in the launch of the French translation of this landmark book, a historical-philosophical investigation that is as funny as it is well argued.
Behind the booming music, euphoric intoxication and frenzied dancing, gay bars have long been places where marginalized, disenfranchized people could meet and even take refuge, places where they could experience a sense of belonging and, at last, exist. To many, these were places where they could find themselves. But today, with gentrification and the spread of dating apps, what’s left of these places? In Gay Bar, Jeremy Atherton Lin conducts a historical-philosophical enquiry of the places that have shaped his life and that of the LGBTQI community – a community that turns out to be more fragmented and complex than it seems.
adventurous wanderings
A mix of historical reconstruction, varied readings, erotic anecdotes and political analysis, Gay Bar is an embodied book between whose lines the author’s own love story becomes the common thread of adventurous wanderings on both sides of the Atlantic, between Los Angeles, London, San Francisco and Blackpool.
Jeremy Atherton Lin will be answering questions from journalist Adrien Naselli and reading extracts from this landmark book.
Michael Belano, who translated Gay Bar for Tusitala, will also be present.
ABOUT THE AUTHORBorn in California, Jeremy Atherton Lin is an Asian-American essayist. He has published articles in The Yale Review, The White Review, The Guardian and The Times Literary Supplement. Translated into several languages and critically acclaimed, Gay Bar won the autobiography prize of the National Book Critics Circle Award and was selected as one of the best books of 2021 by The New York Times and Vogue. Jeremy Atherton Lin is the editor of Failed States magazine. He has created programmes for NTS Radio and performed at institutions including Moderna Museet Stockholm and the University of California Los Angeles. In Deep House, his second book announced for 2025, Jeremy Atherton Lin will tell a personal story about gay marriage and immigration. He divides his time between Los Angeles and East Sussex in England.