RIP: Jan Morris
Nov. 20th, 2020 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseThe Guardian Obituary is here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/20/jan-morris-historian-travel-writer-and-trans-pioneer-dies-aged-94
When it first started, back in the 1970s, Mom subscribed me to People Magazine. I liked it pretty well, but not usually for the cover story. Inside I learned about people who weren't big names who were doing, or had done, something interesting.
I vividly remember the article People did on Jan Morris. I wasn't more than 15 -- probably younger -- and it was the first I'd heard about transitioning. She was so matter of fact about her journey that it never occurred to me that she was extremely brave for speaking about it at the time.
I read the Britannica series which, in the 1980s, was still being published under the name "James Morris" -- possibly due to copyright, possibly due to other factors -- and was amazed at how succinctly the books covered approximately 100 years of time in British and international history. Her accomplishments under her prior name include being the reporter who announced that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay had made it to Everest's summit.
I read about Jan Morris now and again. I think I'm going to pick up her book, Hav, and enjoy a great history writer's foray into science fiction. I feel certain she'll amaze me again.
When it first started, back in the 1970s, Mom subscribed me to People Magazine. I liked it pretty well, but not usually for the cover story. Inside I learned about people who weren't big names who were doing, or had done, something interesting.
I vividly remember the article People did on Jan Morris. I wasn't more than 15 -- probably younger -- and it was the first I'd heard about transitioning. She was so matter of fact about her journey that it never occurred to me that she was extremely brave for speaking about it at the time.
I read the Britannica series which, in the 1980s, was still being published under the name "James Morris" -- possibly due to copyright, possibly due to other factors -- and was amazed at how succinctly the books covered approximately 100 years of time in British and international history. Her accomplishments under her prior name include being the reporter who announced that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay had made it to Everest's summit.
I read about Jan Morris now and again. I think I'm going to pick up her book, Hav, and enjoy a great history writer's foray into science fiction. I feel certain she'll amaze me again.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-09 02:06 am (UTC)In my twenties (when I thought I was cis), I read her memoir on transitioning but it made me uneasy. I now realize it was because I'm nonbinary, and her memoir offered rigidly binary notions of gender. Interestingly, she seems to have drifted toward the end to regarding her own gender in a nonbinary fashion.