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.
"Tā tā" 她他 (She, He) is the Chinese language edition of "Conundrum" by Jan Morris.
I found this nice intro on Goodreads: "The great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man’s man."
And here is an excerpt from a fantastic review from Transascity: "Conundrum is an autobiography, a tale about the life and transsexual journey of Jan Morris, noted British journalist and author. Born Humphrey Morris, Jan led an idyllic if somewhat lonely childhood, feeling since age 3 or 4 that she was born into the wrong body."
2016,
Chinese,
Jan Morris,
Full title: "Jan Morris: Life from Both Sides - A Biography" by Paul Clements.
"The first full account of the remarkable life of Jan writer, soldier, traveller, and trans pioneer. Jan Morris is widely considered one of Britain’s best-loved writers, known for her observational genius, lyricism, and humour. Born in 1926, she spent her childhood amidst Oxford’s Gothic beauty and later participated in military service in Italy and the Middle East, before becoming an internationally fêted foreign correspondent.
However, public success masked a private dilemma that was only resolved when she transitioned genders in the late sixties. She went on to live happily with her wife Elizabeth in Wales for another five decades, and never stopped writing and publishing. Here, for the first time, the many strands of Morris’s rich and at times paradoxical life are brought together."
2023,
English,
Jan Morris,
Paul Clements,
Full title: "Jan Morris (Writers of Wales)" by Paul Clements.
"This is the first full-length study of Jan Morris, one of Britain's foremost travel essayist and popular historians. It takes a critical look at a unique writer who after spending more than forty years as a man, underwent a sex-change in the 1970s and became a woman.
The book outlines Morris's early life and education as James. It focuses on his early journalistic career when in 1953, as The Times correspondent, he took part in the British conquest of Everest and scooped the world with his reports. Morris's writings span nearly fifty years. Since the 1950s she has been a major figure in journalism and travel writing in both Britain and the United States.
1998,
English,
Jan Morris,
Paul Clements,
UK,
Wales,
"Dilemma: Verandering van sekse" (Dilemma: Change of sex) is the Dutch language edition of "Conundrum" by Jan Morris.
I found this nice intro on Goodreads: "The great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man’s man."
And here is an excerpt from a fantastic review from Transascity: "Conundrum is an autobiography, a tale about the life and transsexual journey of Jan Morris, noted British journalist and author. Born Humphrey Morris, Jan led an idyllic if somewhat lonely childhood, feeling since age 3 or 4 that she was born into the wrong body."
1975,
Dutch,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
Original title: "The Girl from Casablanca: The True Story of the First Sex Change" is the English language edition of "La fille de Casablanca" by Juliette Jourdan.
"In 1956, in Casablanca, while Morocco struggles for its independence, Jenny, a young trans woman, solicits Dr. Georges Burou, a renowned, if somewhat enigmatic gynecologist, for a 'sex change'...
The Girl from Casablanca tells the true story of the first entirely successful sex reassignment surgery, at a time when the word 'trans' didn't even exist. It also tells a tale of daring and courage against all odds. True to himself, Dr. Burou went ahead with the first gender surgery to help a desperate and endearing young trans woman while risking ruining his career. Without knowing it, he would set the standard, to this day, for MtF surgery."
2021,
April Ashley,
Coccinelle,
English,
Jan Morris,
Juliette Jourdan,
Full title: "Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere" by Jan Morris.
"Jan Morris (then James) first visited Trieste as a soldier at the end of the Second World War. Since then, the city has come to represent her own life, with all its hopes, disillusionments, loves and memories. Here, her thoughts on a host of subjects - ships, cities, cats, sex, nationalism, Jewishness, civility and kindness - are inspired by the presence of Trieste, and recorded in or between the lines of this book.
Evoking the whole of its modern history, from its explosive growth to wealth and fame under the Habsburgs, through the years of Fascist rule to the miserable years of the Cold War, when rivalries among the great powers prevented its creation as a free city under United Nations auspices, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere is neither a history nor a travel book; like the place, it is one of a kind."
2002,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
UK,
Full title: "In My Mind's Eye: A Thought Diary" by Jan Morris.
"'I have never before in my life kept a diary of my thoughts, and here at the start of my ninth decade, having for the moment nothing much else to write, I am having a go at it. Good luck to me.'
So begins this extraordinary book, a collection of diary pieces that Jan Morris wrote for the Financial Times over the course of 2017.
A former soldier and journalist, and one of the great chroniclers of the world for over half a century, she writes here in her characteristically intimate voice - funny, perceptive, wise, touching, wicked, scabrous, and above all, kind - about her thoughts on the world, and her own place in it as she turns ninety. From cats to cars, travel to home, music to writing, it's a cornucopia of delights from a unique literary figure."
2019,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
UK,
Full title: "Allegorizings" by Jan Morris.
"Soldier, journalist, historian, author of forty books, Jan Morris led an extraordinary life, witnessing such seminal moments as the first ascent of Everest, the Suez Canal Crisis, the Eichmann Trial, The Cuban Revolution and so much more. Now, in Allegorizings, published posthumously as was her wish, Morris looks back over some of the key moments of her life, and sees a multitude of meanings."
"From her final travels to the USA and across Europe to late journeys on her beloved trains and ships, from the deaths of her old friends Hilary and Tenzig to the enduring relationships in her own life, from reflections on identity and nations to the importance of good marmalade, it bears testimony to her uniquely kind and inquisitive take on the world."
2021,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
UK,
"Kunō: aru seitenkansha no kokuhaku = Conundrum" (Agony: Confession of a Transsexual = Conundrum) is the Japanese language edition of "Conundrum" by Jan Morris.
I found this nice intro on Goodreads: "The great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man’s man."
And here is an excerpt from a fantastic review from Transascity: "Conundrum is an autobiography, a tale about the life and transsexual journey of Jan Morris, noted British journalist and author. Born Humphrey Morris, Jan led an idyllic if somewhat lonely childhood, feeling since age 3 or 4 that she was born into the wrong body."
1976,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
Japanese,
"Conundrum: Mein Weg vom Mann zur Frau" (Conundrum: My journey from man to woman) is the 1993 German language edition of "Conundrum" by Jan Morris. In 2020, the book was republished with the following title: "Rätsel: Betrachtung einer Wandlung" (Riddle: consideration of a transformation).
I found this nice intro on Goodreads: "The great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man’s man."
1993,
Georges Burou,
German,
Jan Morris,
Full title: "Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism" by Pat Califia.
"Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism is Califia's meticulously researched book based on an astute reading of the available literature and in-depth interviews with gender transgressors who "opened their lives, minds, hearts, and bedrooms to the gaze of strangers."
Writing about both male-to-female and female-to-male transsexuals, Califia examines the lives of early transgender pioneers like Christine Jorgensen, Jan Morris, Renee Richards, and Mark Rees, contemporary transgender activists like Leslie Feinberg and Kate Bornstein, and partners of transgendered people like Minnie Bruce Pratt. Califia scrutinizes feminist resistance to transsexuals occupying women's space, the Christian Right's backlash against transsexuals, and the appropriation of the berdache and other differently-gendered by gay historians to prove the universal existence of homosexuality. Finally, Sex Changes explores the future of gender."
1997,
Christine Jorgensen,
English,
Jan Morris,
Kate Bornstein,
Pat Califia,
Renée Richards,
Original title: "Jan Morris" by Alberto Olmos.
No one expected that James Morris, the only journalist who had reported on the coronation of Everest in 1953, to later work as a war reporter, travel around the world, have five children and consolidate himself at the top of his intrepid and then very masculine profession, would change gender in 1972 in a practically illegal clinic of Dr. Georges Burou in Casablanca, being of her great professional and personal milestones, of her non-militant transsexuality and of her charming old age secluded in a century-old house in the heart of Wales. The story of wanting to be another, another, and, if possible, another one.
2021,
Alberto Olmos,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
Spanish,
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."
1989,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
Full title: "Jan Morris: Around the World in Eighty Years" by Jan Morris.
"In honor of the 80th birthday of British travel journalist Jan Morris, her colleagues and successors have put together this celebratory, biographical tribute, which explores both the writer and her writing.
By revisiting more than 50 years of descriptions of her travels, her epic three-volume history of the British Empire, and her startling and thoughtful memoir about her sex change, the volume contains many full, intimate insights into her character from renowned contributors, including George Band, Arturo di Stefano, David Fieldhouse, Don Geroge, David Hurn, Pico Iyer, Robert McCrum, Geoffrey Moorhouse, Patrick Nairn, Jim Perrin, Hilary Rubenstein, Colin Thubron, Erica Wagner, Alan Whicker, Simon Winchester, and Peregrine Wortsthorne."
2007,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
Paul Clements,
"L'énigme. d'un sexe à l'autre" is the French language edition of "Conundrum" by Jan Morris.
I found this nice intro on Goodreads: "The great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man’s man."
And here is an excerpt from a fantastic review from Transascity: "Conundrum is an autobiography, a tale about the life and transsexual journey of Jan Morris, noted British journalist and author. Born Humphrey Morris, Jan led an idyllic if somewhat lonely childhood, feeling since age 3 or 4 that she was born into the wrong body."
1974,
French,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
"El enigma" is the Spanish language edition of "Conundrum" by Jan Morris.
I found this nice intro on Goodreads: "The great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man’s man."
And here is an excerpt from a fantastic review from Transascity: "Conundrum is an autobiography, a tale about the life and transsexual journey of Jan Morris, noted British journalist and author. Born Humphrey Morris, Jan led an idyllic if somewhat lonely childhood, feeling since age 3 or 4 that she was born into the wrong body."
1974,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
Spanish,
Full title: "Conundrum" by Jan Morris.
I found this nice intro on Goodreads: "The great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British Empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man’s man."
And here is an excerpt from a fantastic review from Transascity: "Conundrum is an autobiography, a tale about the life and transsexual journey of Jan Morris, noted British journalist and author. Born Humphrey Morris, Jan led an idyllic if somewhat lonely childhood, feeling since age 3 or 4 that she was born into the wrong body.
1974,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
Full title: "Thinking Again: A Diary" by Jan Morris.
Catharine Jan Morris (1926-2000) was born James Humphry Morris. She was a Welsh historian, writer, and travel writer. She published under her birth name, James, until 1972, when she had gender reassignment surgery after transitioning from male to female. The book was published one year before her death.
“Like Michel de Montaigne” (Danny Heitman, Wall Street Journal), Morris waxes on the ironies of modern life in all their resonant glories and inevitable stupidities - from her daily exercise (a “statutory thousand paces of brisk walk”) to the troubles of Brexit; her enduring yet complicated love for America; and honest reflections on the vagaries and ailments of aging. Both intimate and luminously wise, Thinking Again is a testament to the virtues of embracing life, creativity, and, above all, kindness.
2020,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
