A random collection of over 1910 books and audiobooks authored by or about my transgender, intersex sisters, and gender-nonconforming persons all over the world. I read some of them, and I was inspired by some of them. I met some of the authors and heroines, some of them are my best friends, and I had the pleasure and honor of interviewing some of them. If you know of any transgender biography that I have not covered yet, please let me know.
1989,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
Full title: "Pleasures of a Tangled Life" by Jan Morris. The book was published in 1989, and it has had many re-editions since then.
"In 1974, when world-renowned travel writer Jan Morris published her immensely popular autobiography "Conundrum" - which describes her gender change - critics wondered what kind of sensibility would result from this extraordinary shift.
"Pleasure of a Tangled Life" provides the answer.
On one level, this book may be read as a fanciful celebration of quotidian pleasures and an invitation to share her private delights. But there is more: a singular memoir unveiling Morris's complex personality, her idiosyncrasies, passions, and obsessions - written in her powerful and original style, possessed of verve and wit and an eye for the telling detail."
According to Wikipedia, Catharine Jan Morris, born James Humphry Morris, (1926-2020), was a Welsh author, historian, and travel writer, known for the Pax Britannica trilogy (1968–1978), a history of the British Empire, and for portraits of cities, including Oxford, Venice, Trieste, Hong Kong, and New York City. She published under her birth name, James, until 1972, when she had gender reassignment surgery after transitioning from male to female.
In 1949, James got married to Elizabeth, daughter of Ceylon tea planter and they had five children together. They lived together in the village of Llanystumdwy, in North Wales, for over 50 years until Morris' death in November 2020.
Morris began her transition in 1964, one of the first high-profile people to do so. In 1972, she traveled to Casablanca, Morocco to undergo gender reassignment surgery, performed by surgeon Georges Burou, because such a surgery was not allowed in Britain unless Morris and her wife divorced, which they did not want to do. Due to practical reasons, they divorced later but remained together until their reunion in 2008, when they formally entered into a civil partnership.
Morris described her transition in 'Conundrum' (1974), her first book under her new name, and one of the first autobiographies to touch upon a gender reassignment surgery. She died on 20 November 2020 in Pwllheli in North Wales, at the age of 94, survived by her wife Elizabeth and their four children.
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