Assotto saint biography page
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Remembering Assotto Saint: A Fierce and Fatal Vision
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Assotto Saint and I were both finalists for a Lambda Literary Award in 1997. He was up for Gay Biography, I was up for both Lesbian Studies and Fiction Anthologies. Neither of us would win that year, but I would have other chances. Assotto and I had both won before, but in those days, when everything seemed so temporal, the moment was everything. I wanted the win for my political offerings and I wanted it for him for history. I was very ill that year, bedridden and almost unable to move, and Assotto was on my mind a lot–all of them were, the gay men I had loved, who I had lost.
Assotto would never win another award because Assotto had died June 29, 1994. His work was over. The book that was a finalist, an autobiographical collection, Spells of a Voodoo Doll: The Poems, Fiction, Essays and Plays of Assotto Sainthad been published by Richard Kasak at Masquerade Books, who I would later work for as an editor in the six
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Assotto Saint
Haitian-born American poet, publisher and performance artist (1957-1994)
Assotto Saint | |
|---|---|
| Born | Yves François Lubin October 2, 1957 Les Cayes, Haiti |
| Died | June 29, 1994 (aged 36) New York City |
| Occupation | Poet, performance artist |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1980s |
| Spouse | Jan Holmgren |
Assotto Saint (October 2, 1957 - June 29, 1994) was a Haitian-born American poet, publisher and performance artist, who was a key figure in LGBT and African-American art and literary culture of the 1980s and early 1990s.[1]
Background
[edit]Saint was born in Les Cayes, Haiti, on October 2, 1957, as Yves François Lubin.[2] He moved to New York City in 1970, enrolling briefly in a pre-med program at Queens College,[1] but soon dropped out to pursue his artistic interests.[1] He adopted the name Assotto Saint around this time, choosing Assotto for a ceremonial drum used in Haitian Vodou rituals and Saint for Haitian
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Spells of a Voodoo Doll: The Poems, Fiction, Essays and Plays of Assotto Saint
Assotto Saint was lost to AIDS on June 29, 1994 at the age of 36. Spells of a Voodoo Doll: The Poems, Fiction, Essays and Plays by Assotto Saint was published posthumously in 1996 and is now out of print. This collection is as compelling as Essex Hemphill’s Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry (1992; republished 2000). As with Hemphill’s writings, each piece by Saint is eminently readable and pulls you in from the first word. Saint won’t let you go until he is good and ready. The word “powerful” is barely adequate to describe Saint’s writing.
In the essay “Why I Write,” the first piece in Spells of a Voodoo Doll, Assotto Saint says, “My poems and plays are weapons and blessings that I use to liberate myself, to validate our realities as black gay men, and to elucidate the human struggle.” Saint’s weapons and blessings, his poems, stories, and essays, are often prophetic. The