Emi
04-08-03, 05:42 PM
Jeffrey Eugenides won this year's Pulitzer prize in fiction for his novel "Middlesex," whose protagonist is an intersex person. While I find some of the things the author has said in interviews and book readings problematic, I do nonetheless think that the book raises public awareness of intersex issues in a way that hasn't been possible in the past.
<i>The Advocate</i> posted an article about the Pulitzers, but its title stated "Transgender novel Middlesex wins Pulitzer." So I wrote them an email (which you can read <a href="http://www.advocate.com/html/letters/letters_single_ex.asp?letterID=1397">here</a>)--and within five hours, their web site is changed! The title was changed to "Intersex novel, gay playwright win Pulitzers," and the paragraph was re-written. Below is BEFORE and AFTER.
BEFORE: "The fiction prize for Middlesex almost surely marks a milestone in Pulitzer history: the first book so honored to be narrated by a hermaphrodite, loosely defined as someone with both male and female sexual organs. Calliope Helen Stephanides is born a girl. As a teenager she begins growing a mustache and otherwise turning more than 'a little bit freakish.' Eugenides got the idea for Middlesex after reading a book by French philosopher Michel Foucault that contained a memoir by a 19th-century hermaphrodite. 'She could hardly describe the experience. She wrote around it,' he told the Associated Press in an interview last fall."
AFTER: The fiction prize for Middlesex almost surely marks a milestone in Pulitzer history: the first book so honored to be narrated by an intersexed protagonist, a person whose reproductive organs and other physical characteristics are of indeterminate sex. In the novel, Calliope Helen Stephanides is born a girl. As a teenager she begins growing a mustache and otherwise turning more than 'a little bit freakish.' Eugenides got the idea for Middlesex after reading a book by French philosopher Michel Foucault that contained a memoir by a 19th-century 'hermaphrodite,' as the intersexed were then called. '[The intersexed person] could hardly describe the experience. She wrote around it,' he told the Associated Press in an interview last fall."
I'm not sure if my email prompted them to make these changes, and the changes seem somewhat awkward, but I'm glad that they are making an effort to get the story right.
The article is found <a href="http://www.advocate.com/new_news.asp?ID=8288&sd=04/08/03">here</a>.
(04/09 - edited to fix "book reviews" to "book readings")
<i>The Advocate</i> posted an article about the Pulitzers, but its title stated "Transgender novel Middlesex wins Pulitzer." So I wrote them an email (which you can read <a href="http://www.advocate.com/html/letters/letters_single_ex.asp?letterID=1397">here</a>)--and within five hours, their web site is changed! The title was changed to "Intersex novel, gay playwright win Pulitzers," and the paragraph was re-written. Below is BEFORE and AFTER.
BEFORE: "The fiction prize for Middlesex almost surely marks a milestone in Pulitzer history: the first book so honored to be narrated by a hermaphrodite, loosely defined as someone with both male and female sexual organs. Calliope Helen Stephanides is born a girl. As a teenager she begins growing a mustache and otherwise turning more than 'a little bit freakish.' Eugenides got the idea for Middlesex after reading a book by French philosopher Michel Foucault that contained a memoir by a 19th-century hermaphrodite. 'She could hardly describe the experience. She wrote around it,' he told the Associated Press in an interview last fall."
AFTER: The fiction prize for Middlesex almost surely marks a milestone in Pulitzer history: the first book so honored to be narrated by an intersexed protagonist, a person whose reproductive organs and other physical characteristics are of indeterminate sex. In the novel, Calliope Helen Stephanides is born a girl. As a teenager she begins growing a mustache and otherwise turning more than 'a little bit freakish.' Eugenides got the idea for Middlesex after reading a book by French philosopher Michel Foucault that contained a memoir by a 19th-century 'hermaphrodite,' as the intersexed were then called. '[The intersexed person] could hardly describe the experience. She wrote around it,' he told the Associated Press in an interview last fall."
I'm not sure if my email prompted them to make these changes, and the changes seem somewhat awkward, but I'm glad that they are making an effort to get the story right.
The article is found <a href="http://www.advocate.com/new_news.asp?ID=8288&sd=04/08/03">here</a>.
(04/09 - edited to fix "book reviews" to "book readings")