GLR November-December 2023

ESSAY Georges Eekhoud’s Forbidden Foray M ICHAEL R OSENFELD

I N 1965, Guild Press published Georges Eekhoud’s queer novel Escal-Vigor under the title A Strange Love , with a picture of a handsome, bare-chested young man on the front cover (Figure 1). The back cover doesn’t reveal any details about the author, and the front flap includes scant biographical details: “Georges Eekhoud is one of the leading writers of this century, and this beautifully written book was one of the pioneering works of fiction dealing with the subject matter of homoeroticism.” The back flap lists his publications, with French titles, but no dates (this list is re produced inside the book too). The title page reveals that A Strange Love has a subtitle, Escal-Vigor , followed by “From the French of George Eekhoud.” However, nothing indicates that this novel was first published in 1899, and anyone picking up the book would be led to believe that it was by a contemporary writer. The introduction takes a somewhat militant stance—Eekhoud is described as “one of the best-known classical writers of modern Belgium”—but does not provide any context. A Strange Love is compared to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray , and Eekhoud’s acquittal on “Friday the 26th of October, 1900” is mentioned. Readers would no doubt have been disappointed to discover that the most erotic scenes in the book involve two passionate kisses. An English translation of Escal-Vigor was published in 1909 by Charles Carrington. Panurge Press reprinted this translation in 1930 and Guild Press in 1965. There are no significant dif ferences between these translations except for the illustration by Carroll Snell in the 1930 edition, which depicts a woman in the foreground who’s baring her bosom and showing one nipple.

remembered today as a queer pioneer: Escal-Vigor is consid ered the first novel in Belgium to depict love between two men, and his queer short stories are still published in French editions and were translated into Spanish as recently as this year. Eekhoud was orphaned at a young age and taken in by his wealthy maternal uncle, an industrialist. He enjoyed a privi leged upbringing at the exclusive Swiss boarding school Brei denstein Institute, where he received an excellent education and learned several languages. It was here that he first understood his queer desires. In notes he prepared later in life, he revealed his special friendship with Giuseppe Facchini, a “handsome and strong” sixteen-year-old from Bologna. His friend “was more than a brother” to him and took care of him “better than any mother” when he injured his ankle and was bedridden. Eekhoud also recalls that Giuseppe gave him all of his choco lates and a book by Victor Hugo. He was also fascinated by an other schoolmate: “Boratto was well built, handsome like Saint Sebastian, with frizzy hair, a matte and slightly olive com plexion, big lips and large eyes.” Eekhoud recalls that this friend used to strip his shirt off to show his muscles and would perform gymnastics for his friends; he admits openly that he felt “passion” for him. Boratto would “gently tease him and

The drawing also shows a furious and violent crowd throwing stones and, in the background to the right, a well-dressed man hovering over a shirtless man. This il lustration is a dramatized and eroticized version of the final scene of the book (Fig ure 2). Eekhoud was born in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1854. He died in Brussels in 1927 after a long career as a pres tigious novelist and journal ist, as well as a critic of art and literature. He’s mainly

Michael Rosenfeld, a postdoctoral fellow in queer literary history at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium), is co-editor of The Italian In vert: A Gay Man’s Intimate Confessions to Émile Zola (2022).

13 Figs. 1 (left) and 2 (above): 1965 and 1930 editions of A Strange Love.

November–December 2023