Maureen Duffy (b. 1933 in Worthing, Sussex) is a notable contemporary British poet, playwright and novelist. She has also published a literary biography of Aphra Behn, and The Erotic World of Faery a book-length study of eroticism in faery fantasy literature.
After a tough childhood, Duffy took her degree in English from King’s College London. She went on to be a schoolteacher from 1956 to 1961, and edited three editions of a poetry magazine called the sixties. She then turned to writing full-time as a poet and playwright after being commissioned to produce a screenplay by Granada Television. Her first novel, written at the suggestion of a publisher, That’s How It Was (1962), was published to great acclaim. Her first openly lesbian novel was The Microcosm (1966), set in the famous lesbian Gateways club in London.
Maureen's new collection of poems, her seventh, Environmental Studies, is published by Enitharmon on May 6th. See the Enitharmon website for more details.
The Orpheus Trail
When a child is found dead among the charred remains of a pier fire, surrounded by the old-fashioned toys of the Greek god Dionysus and a ritualistic fire basket, Detective Inspector Hildreth calls in the local museum’s curator, Alex Kish, to help him decipher the mysterious symbolism.
Soon afterwards an ancient Saxon amulet is stolen from the museum and the dead bodies of other young boys begin to turn up arranged as grotesque works of art with components of the gold amulet around their necks. The enigmatic Detective Inspector draws the curator into a strange web of ancient secrets, pagan ritualism, and the illegal trafficking of young boys.
Have the boys been murdered? How have they got there? What is the meaning of the symbols? And most of all who is responsible and why? The Orpheus Trail is a tense thriller where Hildreth and Kish are caught up in a race against time to interpret these ancient codes and clues before death claims another young life.
Publisher: ARCADIA BOOKSISBN: 978-1-906413-05-7
Maureen is the author of 31 published works of fiction, including 6 collections of poetry, non-fiction, and 16 plays for stage, screen and radio, the most recent, being Sappho Singing; she is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of King’s College London, and a Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature, as well as President of Honour of the British Copyright Council and the ALCS, and a CISAC gold medallist. She was recently awarded a D. Litt by Loughborough University for contributions to literature and equality law reform. Life Writing is included in her new collection, Environmental Studies, to be published by Enitharmon in April 2013.
Her novel Gor Saga was televised in 1988 in a three part mini-series called First Born starring Charles Dance.
She is said to have been Britain’s first lesbian to ‘come out’ in public, and made public comments during the debates around homosexual law reform. In 1977 she published The Ballad of the Blasphemy Trial, a broadside against the trial of the Gay News newspaper for ‘blasphemous libel’.
Maureen’s agent is:
Jonathan Clowes Ltd, 10 Iron Bridge House, Bridge Approach, London NW1 8BD, Tel: 0207 722 7674
Go to Amazon.co.uk for the availability of the these titles.
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