num_pages: 917
description: When this richly written novel first appeared in 1974, Samuel R. Delany began to sweep up what would eventually exceed a million readers with his tale of Bellona, a city at the center of the United States, shaken by a catastrophe that has unhinged the very structure of reality. Skies darkened by smoke from burning buildings, population reduced to youth gangs, drifters, prophets, and perverts, Bellona is a city where a young man known only as the Kid - poet, lover, and finally a leader of the volatile "scorpions" - tries to create a life for himself and those around him in a landscape where two moons can suddenly shine through the night clouds or a sun thousands of times larger than any ever seen before may rise - and set - in a day. Dhalgren is a novel that interrogates a range of inchoately American oppositions: black and white, male and female, gay and straight, sane and mad.
language: English
title: Dhalgren
titlecomplete: Dhalgren
genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Queer, Science Fiction Fantasy, Classics, Novels, Fantasy, Dystopia, Post Apocalyptic
ratings_count: 11084
awards: awardedAt: 157795200000
name: Nebula Award
category: Novel, awardedAt: 189331200000
name: Locus Award
category: Best Novel
publisher: Wesleyan Press