Mark Hyatt
Mark Hyatt (1940-1972) lived at the center and fringes of the bohemian underground in 1960s Britain. In the half-century since his death, his work was known almost exclusively by word of mouth. So Much For Life (Nightboat, 2023), edited by Sam Ladkin and Luke Roberts, is the first comprehensive edition of his poems.
In September, Nightboat Books will publish Love, Leda, a lost novel from the bohemian poet Mark Hyatt. Leda, the novel’s protagonist, semi-homeless and estranged from his given family, relies on the support of his chosen one: a community of older gay men and divorced women who feed and clothe him, gently encouraging him to find a foothold in a society which excludes him at every turn. Written prior to the UK’s Sexual Offences Act of 1967, Hyatt’s frank depiction of Leda’s search for intimacy, love, sex, and survival among a criminalized subculture serves as an important historical record. The Guardian describes it as “a singular work; a contemporary portrait of working-class gay London in the years running up to decriminalisation that neither flatters nor sensationalises.”
Mark Hyatt (1940-1972) lived at the center and fringes of the bohemian underground in 1960s Britian. In the half-century since his death, his work was known almost exclusively by word of mouth. So Much For Life (Nightboat, 2023), edited by Sam Ladkin and Luke Roberts, is the first comprehensive edition of his poems.