Diarmuid Hester: The idea for the book emerged from that moment in January 2020 when Derek Jarman’s home – Prospect Cottage in Dungeness – went up for sale. It’s a very interesting place and it has this really important role in the development of queer politics and queer art in Britain. It’s really, really important because Jarman was an Aids activist but also because he wrote about it so evocatively in.
When I started to write this book I thought, what am I going to allow myself to do? And where do the limits lie between their life and mine? I think this negotiation between them and us, between the other and the self, comes down to this idea of friendship. Friendship is a really important idea for me and one that runs through my writing and scholarship and the way I approach historical subjects..