American author
Torrey Peters
(born July 1981) is an American author.
[2]
[3]
Her debut novel,
Detransition, Baby
, has received mainstream and critical success.
[4]
[5]
The novel was nominated for the 2021
Women’s Prize for Fiction
.
[6]
Early life and education
[
edit
]
Peters was born in Evanston, Illinois.
[1]
Her father was a professor and her mother was a lawyer.
[1]
She grew up in Chicago, later attending
Hampshire College
.
[7]
She graduated from the
University of Iowa
with an MFA and from
Dartmouth College
with an MA in Comparative Literature.
[8]
[9]
Work
[
edit
]
Peters’s first two self-published novellas,
The Masker
and
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones
, were published online in 2016 and reviewed by writer Harron Walker for
them
.
[2]
The Masker
is about a person contemplating
transitioning from male to female.
[8]
Set in a dystopian future where
bioterrorism
has destroyed the body's ability to produce
sex hormones
,
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones
follows
Patient Zero
and her cat-and-mouse relationship with Lexi, a working-class, gun-obsessed trans girl.
[10]
Glamour Boutique
, Peters's third novella, explores a casual
Craigslist
encounter at a crossdressers’ boutique store.
[8]
In 2021, it was announced that
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones
and
The Masker
would be reissued by Random House in 2022 and would be published in a collection under the title
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones
.
[11]
She has written reviews for a breadth of transgender and gender non-conforming authors, such as
Janet Mock
,
Akwaeke Emezi
, and
Casey Plett
, who have published books through
Arsenal Pulp Press
, Metonymy, and
Topside Press
.
[12]
Detransition, Baby
[
edit
]
Peters' debut novel,
Detransition, Baby
, published by
Penguin Random House
Profile Books in 2021, was met with critical success and praise for crafting an exploration of
gender
, parenthood, and love.
[13]
[14]
The main characters are Reese, a trans woman working in PR and former partner of Amy; Amy, who
detransitions
and becomes Ames; and Katrina, a Chinese Jewish woman who is Ames' boss and pregnant with his child.
[15]
[16]
Detransition, Baby
was nominated for the 2021
Women’s Prize for Fiction
, making Peters the first openly trans woman nominated for the award.
[6]
The longlisting of Peters was met with some controversy from those who did not consider her to be a woman. A letter argued that she is "male" and therefore should not be eligible for the prize.
[17]
Its list of signatories included
atheist
writer
Ophelia Benson
and environmentalist
Rebecca Lush
, but as a rhetorical strategy the letter also included long-dead writers such as
Emily Dickinson
and
Willa Cather
.
[18]
Authors including Melinda Salisbury,
Joanne Harris
, and
Naoise Dolan
?another nominee for the 2021 prize?condemned the letter and expressed their support for Peters. The organisers of the prize released a statement condemning the letter and defending the decision to nominate Peters' book.
[17]
[19]
Personal life
[
edit
]
Peters came out as
transgender
at age 26. At 30, she began
taking hormones
to physically transition.
[1]
In 2009, Peters married Olive Minor. In 2010, the pair lived in
Kampala
,
Uganda
while Minor worked on an
ethnography
of Uganda's only
lesbian bar
. The strain of suppressing her
gender
amid Uganda's debate over the
2009 Anti-Homosexuality Bill
caused Peters to leave Kampala while Minor completed her research.
[20]
Peters and Minor divorced in 2015 but remain close friends.
[7]
[21]
[22]
[23]
As of September 2021,
[update]
Peters lives in New York with her wife, whom she married that month.
[1]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Butter, Susannah (2021-04-07).
"Trans writer Torrey Peters: 'I have a lot of empathy for JK Rowling'
"
.
www.standard.co.uk
.
Archived
from the original on 14 May 2022
. Retrieved
2021-06-18
.
- ^
a
b
"Torrey Peters | Penguin Random House"
.
PenguinRandomhouse.com
. Retrieved
2020-11-23
.
- ^
"Torrey Peters"
.
www.artforum.com
. January 2021
. Retrieved
2021-01-06
.
- ^
Shapiro, Lila (2021-01-06).
"Torrey Peters Goes There"
.
Vulture
. Retrieved
2021-01-06
.
- ^
"Here Are the 10 New Books You Should Read in January"
.
Time
. Retrieved
2021-01-06
.
- ^
a
b
Zhan, Jennifer (2021-04-07).
"Torrey Peters Addresses Transphobic Backlash Over Women's Prize Nomination"
.
Vulture
. Retrieved
2021-04-16
.
- ^
a
b
"Minor-Peters"
.
Wilmington Star News
. Retrieved
2021-05-28
.
[
permanent dead link
]
- ^
a
b
c
Walker, Harron (8 March 2018).
"Trans Author Torrey Peters Wants to Air Our Dirty Laundry"
.
them
. Retrieved
2020-11-23
.
- ^
"The Best of Brevity: Zoe Bossiere and Dinty W. Moore with Contributors (VIRTUAL EVENT) | McNally Jackson Books"
.
www.mcnallyjackson.com
. 16 October 2020
. Retrieved
2020-11-27
.
- ^
"(Trans) Love and Other Scars: An Interview with Torrey Peters, Author of Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones"
.
Autostraddle
. 2017-02-20
. Retrieved
2020-11-23
.
- ^
"Four Torrey Peters novellas will be published by Random House in 2022"
.
Literary Hub
. 2021-07-28
. Retrieved
2022-05-09
.
- ^
Peters, Torrey (2020-11-19).
"12 of the Best Books by Trans Authors, According to Torrey Peters"
.
Oprah Magazine
. Retrieved
2020-11-27
.
- ^
Epstein, Rachel (2020-11-16).
"Pre-Order These Highly-Anticipated 2021 Book Releases"
.
Marie Claire
. Retrieved
2020-11-24
.
- ^
Berlatsky, Noah (2021-01-06).
"Review: A social comedy on 'detransitioning' asks: Who is anyone to judge?"
.
Los Angeles Times
. Retrieved
2021-01-06
.
- ^
"Alma's Favorite Books for Winter 2021"
.
Alma
. 2020-11-24
. Retrieved
2020-11-24
.
- ^
"Serpent's Tail to publish 'uniquely trans take on love and parenting' by Torrey Peters | The Bookseller"
.
www.thebookseller.com
. Retrieved
2020-11-23
.
- ^
a
b
"Women's prize condemns online attack on trans nominee Torrey Peters"
.
the Guardian
. 2021-04-07
. Retrieved
2021-06-18
.
- ^
"Open letter to the Women's Prize"
.
Wild Woman Writing Club
. 2021-04-06
. Retrieved
2021-06-18
.
- ^
"Women's Prize stands by its nomination of trans author Torrey Peters after open letter"
.
Los Angeles Times
. 2021-04-07
. Retrieved
2021-10-04
.
- ^
Peters, Torrey (4 January 2022).
"Over Fried Fish, I Said Goodbye to My Wife?And to a Version of Myself"
. Conde Nast. Bon Appetit
. Retrieved
23 January
2022
.
- ^
"Minor-Peters"
.
Wilmington Star News
. Retrieved
2021-05-28
.
[
permanent dead link
]
- ^
"WILMER COGGINS Obituary (2012) - Gainesville, FL - Gainesville Sun"
.
www.legacy.com
. Retrieved
2021-05-28
.
- ^
Peters, Torrey (2021-01-12).
Detransition, Baby
. Random House Publishing Group.
ISBN
978-0-593-13339-2
.
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