French writer Marcel Proust was a novelist, literary critic and essayist who was known primarily as the author of the monumental novel “À la recherche du temps perdu” (“Remembrance of Things Past” or “In Search of Lost Time”) published in seven volumes (3,200 pages) between 1913 and 1927. This work featured many gay, lesbian and bisexual characters described in explicit encounters throughout all volumes.
Proust himself was gay, but he never publicly acknowledged it. He had relationships with men, including composer Reynaldo Hahn, novelist Lucien Daudet, and his chauffeur Alfred Agostinelli. Not to mention that, in 1918, Proust was identified by police during a raid on a male brothel. And most interestingly, in 1897 Proust fought a duel with writer Jean Lorrain after Lorrain publicly questioned Proust's relationship with novelist Daudet. The stuff of soap operas.
Love letters from Proust to Reynaldo Hahn were auctioned in Paris in 2018 by a grand niece of the writer. Those letters had never before been disclosed, and they were put on public display prior to the auction. Hahn was the first romantic partner of Marcel Proust, and the two remained close friends for the rest of their lives. They met in 1894 at the salon of Parisian painter Madeleine Lemaire, when Proust was 22 and Hahn 19. Their relationship was intense and lasted until the summer of 1896. They shared a love of music, painting, and literature. Proust wrote in a letter, "Everything I have ever done has always been thanks to Reynaldo".
Proust is considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. His life, however, was marked by poor health (severe asthma from the age of nine) and the turmoil of the French Third Republic with its suppression of the Paris Commune. In later years his health continued to decline, and the last three years of his life were spent confined to his bedroom. He died of pneumonia and a pulmonary abscess in Chaillot (Paris) in 1922, at age 51. He completed seven novels, short stories, translations of John Ruskin and left behind several unfinished works. His life has since been examined in a BBC television special, numerous novels, films and essays.
