His friends and colleagues during this time included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and E. M. Forster, as well as colorful figures he met in Germany and later fictionalized in his two Berlin novels-who appeared again, fictionalized to an even greater degree, in I Am a Camera and Cabaret. What most impressed the first readers of this memoir, however, was the candor with which he describes his life in gay Berlin of the 1930s and his struggles to save his companion, a German man named Heinz, from the Nazis. An engrossing and dramatic story and a fascinating glimpse into a little-known world, Christopher and His Kind remains one of Isherwood's greatest achievements. A major figure in twentieth-century fiction and the gay rights movement, Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) is the author of Down There on a Visit, Lions and Shadows, A Meeting by the River, The Memorial, Prater Violet, A Single Man, and The World in the Evening, all available from the University of Minnesota Press.

    

    

    

    First, individually and collectively, the poems in these two chapbooks are a delight for readers. Secondly, Byrd’s poetry is part of a broad tradition of poetry by African American lesbian-feminists. The poetry of Audre Lorde is canonized widely, and deservedly so, but Lorde is one poet in a chorus of voices–a chorus that includes Byrd as well as Pat Parker, E. Sharon Gomillion, doris davenport, Sapphire, Terri Jewell, Jewelle Gomez, Ai and many others. Access to a broader array of African American, lesbian-feminist poets is vital to our history, literature and cultural heritage.

    In this "brave and good book which shatters bad myths" (Commonweal), McNeill shows that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality, and argues that the Church must not continue its homophobic practices.