David Leavitt is an American novelist. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Leavitt is a graduate of Yale University. and a professor at the University of Florida. He has also taught at Princeton. He is the author of Family Dancing, Equal Affections, The Page Turner, Martin Bauman, or A Sure Thing, The Lost Language of Cranes, While England Sleeps , The Body of Jonah Boyd, and numerous short stories. His most recent novel is The Indian Clerk. Leavitt, who is openly gay, has frequently explored gay issues in his work. At the University of Florida, he is a member of the Creative Writing faculty... and is also the editor of Subtropics magazine, the University of Florida's literary review. He divides his time between Florida and Tuscany, Italy. Many of his books have been translated into Italian and published there. In 1994–95, Leavitt was sued by the English poet Stephen Spender, who claimed Leavitt had plagiarized his memoir in While England Sleeps. Subsequently, Viking Press, Leavitt's publishers, agreed to delete a passage that closely paralleled Spender's.
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