Larry Kramer in Conversation

AIDS activist, novelist, prophet, filmmaker and playwright Larry Kramer makes a very rare trip to the UK exclusively for Outsiders, the 5th annual Liverpool Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Film Festival, as part of our European Capital of Culture Year programme.

At 73 years old, and HIV+, Larry is as combative as ever, and has just as much (if not more) to say about AIDS and America, as you will discover at this benefit in aid of Sahir House (www.sahir.uk.com), a local charity supporting people affected by HIV. Please note this is a very rare opportunity to meet, and question, the author of Faggots and The Normal Heart.

In 1981, with five friends, Larry Kramer founded GMHC, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, one of the world’s largest providers of services to persons with AIDS. In 1987, he founded ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, which has been responsible for the development and release of almost every life-saving treatment for HIV and AIDS.

His most famous play, The Normal Heart, was selected as one of the 100 Best Plays of the 20th Century by the Royal National Theatre and is the longest running play in the history of New York’s Public Theater. Larry’s screenplay of D. H. Lawrence’s Women in Love, a film he produced while living in London in the 1960s, was nominated for an Academy Award. His novel, Faggots, continues to be one of the best-selling of all gay novels, while his book of essays on the AIDS epidemic, Reports from the Holocaust, remains essential reading about the plague.

Larry is a recipient of the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was the first openly gay person and the first creative artist to be honoured by an award from Common Cause.

For many years he has been writing a very long book about the plague, The American People, which is now some 4000 pages long. His most recent book, The Tragedy of Today’s Gays, is published by Penguin. It will tell you much about what you need to know about AIDS, and about America today.

“There is no question in my mind that Larry helped change medicine in this country. And he helped change it for the better. In American medicine there are two eras - before Larry and after Larry.” Dr. Anthony Fauci

Larry Kramer in Conversation
24th and 25th October at FACT in Liverpool
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