Elana Dykewomon, the trailblazing lesbian author and activist, died at her Oakland dwelling Sunday, simply 20 minutes earlier than the beginning of a staged studying of her first play, a shifting account of her battle to take care of her longtime associate who died of dementia almost six years earlier.
Dykewomon, 72, was recognized with esophageal most cancers in September, her brother, Dan Nachman stated. In current weeks, she continued to work through Zoom with the director and forged of “The best way to Let Your Lover Die” to organize it for its inclusion within the Bay Space Playwrights Competition, an annual occasion that showcases new works.
In COVID-19-era style, the actors carried out remotely with Dykewomon dying simply earlier than the play started to stream. Viewers acquired the bittersweet information of her passing within the type of a message posted by her cousin, Jennifer Brier, in a dwell chat that accompanied the play. Tributes instantly started to pour in, through the chat or on social media, in what amounted to an internet model of a triumphant curtain name.
“I do know Elana was so enthusiastic about having this play on the earth and about these performances,” stated Brier, her literary executor. “I wish to think about that she knew we have been all gathered to listen to her phrases and watch the wonderful efficiency. This allowed her to lastly let go. At her coronary heart, Elana was a poet and yesterday was really poetic.”
Dykewomon’s play forthrightly depicts her relationship together with her late associate, Susan Levinkind, as she was dying in 2016 of Lewy physique dementia, the progressive dementia that Robin Williams. Dykewomon’s character wrestles with concern, exhaustion, grief and end-of-life questions on assisted suicide, as she watches her lover succumb to a devastating dysfunction.
Nachman stated he and others in his sister’s interior circle, who have been together with her in her remaining moments, logged on to observe after she died. “It was powerful,” Nachman stated. “However we needed to see what she had created.”
Dykewomon is probably not extensively recognized to most of the people, however she was a central determine in lesbian literature, historical past and activism of the late twentieth century, stated Brier, who additionally directs the gender and ladies’s research program on the College of Illinois at Chicago.
Born in New York Metropolis in 1949, Dykewomon was 24 when she printed her debut novel, “Riverfinger Ladies,” in 1974, a coming-of-age story about lesbian life in the course of the social upheaval of that period. As a pre-teenager within the early Nineteen Sixties, Dykewomon, then referred to as Elana Nachman, tried suicide and was hospitalized. She knew she was one way or the other totally different however was advised by docs she couldn’t presumably “be gay,” as she wrote in an essay included within the 2017 anthology, “Dispatches from Lesbian America.”
All the time good and “militant” from a younger age, Dykewomon got here out at her progressive boarding college, her brother stated. Shortly after “Riverfinger Ladies” was printed, she selected to not use Nachman as her final identify as a result of she didn’t need to be outlined by males, she wrote within the essay. “I selected ‘dyke’ for the facility, and ‘womon’ for the alliance,” she wrote.
“Riverfinger Ladies” is on the New York Occasions listing of 100 Best Homosexual Novels, and her historic novel, “Past the Pale,” about Russian Jewish lesbians immigrating to America on the flip of the twentieth century, gained the 1998 Lamda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction. Her poetry, essays and different works tackle themes of “lesbian love, Jewishness and identification, being butch, fats oppression, psychological sickness and incarceration,” a press release from her family and friends learn.
In Could, she was formally named a “trailblazer” by the Golden Crown Literary Society, which stated her prose depicted “the lives of girls and lesbians, each up to date and historic, permitting us to see our tales on the web page lengthy earlier than these tales have been extensively out there.”
Many additionally keep in mind Dykewomon as the longtime editor of Sinister Knowledge, the influential literary and artwork journal that was beforehand edited by Adrienne Wealthy, in addition to lessons she taught at San Francisco State for greater than 15 years.
“She taught legions of scholars, was beneficiant together with her editorial mentorship, and she or he formed tons and many writers,” Brier stated. Amongst writers influenced by Dykewomon is Giovanna Capone, who co-edited “Dispatches from Lesbian America” and who finally grew to become Dykewomon’s neighbor within the East Oakland enclave that's dwelling to different LGBTQ artists and writers.
Capone stated she first learn “Riverfinger Ladies” in faculty in upstate New York. “I keep in mind highlighting totally different passages,” Capone stated. “It helped me come out. Who would have recognized that 40 years later I’d be dwelling throughout the road from her?”
On their Oakland block, Dykewomon was recognized for her purple-painted home and for strolling her little canine, Alice B. Toklas, Capone stated. She and Levinkind, a retired lawyer, shared the home, in addition to a dedication to selling lesbian visibility and different causes.
When Levinkind died, Dykewomon wrote, “Mourning is essentially the most tough type of celebration, however I'm stuffed with the fantastic thing about what I have to mourn.” In telling their love story, she determined to jot down her first play, an journey and problem even for an skilled author, Brier stated.
“It was laborious to jot down about Susan’s dying, even because it was cathartic,” Brier stated. “I can solely think about how a lot that modified as Elana was taking a look at her personal dying.”
After studying she had most cancers, Dykewomon acquired assist from her “chosen household,” the “superior” group of girls “who mirrored the life she made for herself,” her mates stated. She additionally wrote on Fb: “I've had a fortunate, full, fantastic life. It's extremely potential I'll get better however I'm content material both approach.”
A memorial for Dykewomon is being deliberate for September. Extra data is forthcoming.
Employees photographer Jane Tyska contributed to this report.