Queer and Black Martyrdom in Alan Hollinghurst and Paul Mendez

Both Alan Hollinghurst and Paul Mendez address the vulnerability of dissident, non-normative masculinities. With this purpose, I will first revise narratives martyrdom as an iconography (and trope) which relies on but exceeds its religious origins to understand gay black identity representation in these writers. There are, however, some differences their treatment martyrdom. Hollinghurst’s career spans more than three decades and, hence, his novels feature different faces although all characters/narrators do it from a white perspective. By contrast, Mendez’s Rainbow Milk revisits contested narrative decolonized black/queer viewpoint protagonist.