The Paris Diary & the New York Diary 1951-1961

When The Paris Diary exploded on the scene in 1966 there had never been a book in English quite like it: Its intimate combination of personal, literary, and social insights was unprecedented. Rorem's self-portrait of the artist as a young man, written between 1951 and 1955, was also a mirror of the times, depicting the now vanished milieu of Cocteau, Eluard, Gide, Landowska, Boulez, the Vicomtesse de Noailles, and others whose paths crossed with Rorem's in such settings as Paris, Morocco, and Italy. The New York Diary, published the following year, pictured the period between 1956 and 1960, when Rorem had returned to America. The diaries marked the beginnings of Gay Liberation, not because Rorem made a special issue of his sexuality, but because he did not; rather, he wrote of his affairs frankly and unashamedly. A casualness informs each sensual entry, and the overall tone is at once bratty and brilliant, insecure and vain, loving and cultured, but, above all, honest and entertaining.

Ned Rorem has created a body of work that includes four symphonies, four piano concertos, nine operas, and fourteen books. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his orchestral suite Air Music. He divides his time between New York City and Nantucket.

The Paris Diary * Paris May-July, 1951 * Hyres July, 1951 * Fez, Morocco August, 1951 * Paris September-December, 1951 * Marrakech, Morocco January-February, 1952 * Paris 1952 * Paris 1953 * England, Germany, and Italy 1953 and 1954 * Paris 1954 * Hyres and Italy 1954 and 1955 * France Again 1955 * Aboard the S.S. United States October 1955 The New York Diary * Aboard the S.S. United States October 1955 * New York Spring 1956 * Around the Mediterranean Summer 1956 * Paris and New York, Autumn 1956 * Letter to Claude: New York and Paris March-May 1957 * Paris, Italy, Hyres, Paris, New York Summer-Autumn 1957 * New York Spring-Summer 1958 * New York and New England Summer-Autumn 1958 * Pennsylvania and New York Autumn 1958 * New York, Saratoga, Buffalo 1959-1960 * Saratoga, New York, Buffalo, New York 1960-1961