De besos arriesgados

For some, gay and lesbian literature was, from its beginnings, a weapon of self-assertion and the construction of an identity: the only response that sexual dissidence had available for decades to the repressive power exercised by society against sexual minorities; and that, likewise, it served so that other men and women who loved in a heterodox way saw themselves reflected and found references for their way of feeling. This anthology is the result of a conscientious search for those texts from the past, a work almost of literary archeology, which brings together 20 pioneering stories, written in Spanish, in which sexual dissidence occupies a central place, either in its plot or in its characters. It has three characteristics that make it different from any other published anthology about homosexual literature: the time period that it covers, 1898 and 1980 (a period that we could almost classify as pre-gay and pre-lesbian), the breadth of the territorial scope it covers (Spain and Latin America) and due to the decisive fact that it does not focus on gay or lesbian literature, but rather includes works on both themes, written by both women and men.