Race, Sexuality and Identity in Britain and Jamaica: The Biography of Patrick Nelson, 1916-1963, Bloomsbury Academic, 2017
'This is the first biography of the extraordinary, but ordinary life of, Patrick Nelson. His experiences touched on some of the most important and intriguing historical themes of the twentieth century. He was a black migrant to interwar Britain; an aristocrat's valet in rural Wales; a Black queer man in 1930s London; an artist's model; a law student, a recruit to the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps and Prisoner of War during the Second World War. Through his return to Jamaica after the war and his re-migrations to London in the late 1940s and the early 1960s, he was also witness to post-war Jamaican struggles and the independence movement as well as the development of London's post-war multi-ethnic migrations. Drawing on a range of archival materials including letters sent to individuals such as Bloomsbury group artist Duncan Grant (his former boyfriend and life-long friend), as well as paintings and newspaper articles, Gemma Romain explores the intersections of these diverse aspects of Nelson's life and demonstrates how such marginalized histories shed light on our understanding of broader historical themes such as Black LGBTQ history, Black British history in relation to the London artworld, the history of the Second World War, and histories of racism, colonialism and empire.'
Katherine M. Graham and Simon Avery, eds. Sex, Time and Place: Queer Histories of London, c.1850 to the Present. Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.
Caroline Bressey and I have a chapter in this 2016 publication entitled 'Claude McKay: Queer Interwar London and Spaces of Black Radicalism'. Interwar London was home to a range of individuals from the African and Asian diasporas, including students, political activists, and artists. This chapter explores the experiences of one such individual, the Jamaican poet, writer and activist Claude McKay, focusing on his activities whilst in London working as a political activist during 1919-1921. The chapter concentrates specifically on the formation and expressions of his cosmopolitan, radical, queer and political identities.