Record

CodeDS/UK/20070
NameAcker; Kathy (18 April 1947-30 November 1997); American novelist, playwright and activist
Variations of NameKaren Lehmann | Karen Alexander
AliasBlack Tarantula
Dates18 April 1947-30 November 1997
GenderFemale (cisgender)
Place of Birth/OriginNew York City, New York, United States (born)
RelationshipsDaughter of Donald Lehman and Claire Weill - Culturally German-Jewish background
Adoptive daughter of Albert Alexander
Granddaughter of Florence Weill (Austrian Jewish) and her husband (glove-making business)
Former spouse of Robert Acker and Peter Gordon (composer)
Former partner of Sylvère Lotringer (critic), Peter Wollen (filmmaker) and Charles Shaar Murray (critic)
BiographyKathy Acker was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer, known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trauma, sexuality and rebellion. She was influenced by the Black Mountain School poets, William S. Burroughs, David Antin, Carolee Schneeman, Eleanor Antin, French critical theory, mysticism, pornography and classic literature.

Acker published her first book, Politics, in 1972. In 1973, she published her first novel (under the pseudonym Black Tarantula), The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula: Some Lives of Murderesses. The following year, she published her second novel, I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac: Imagining.

Related Events

Add to My Items