Gay African-American author E. Lynn Harris died Friday morning in Arkansas of a heart attack. He was 54.
According to the Black Voices website, Harris was on a book tour promoting his 11th novel, Basketball Jones, about a pro basketball player and his gay lover.
Harris's books include his debut Invisible Life, If This World Were Mine, Abide With Me, Not a Day Goes By, Any Way the Wind Blows, I Say a Little Prayer, and other novels depicting the experiences of African-American gay men. Harris also wrote a memoir, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, a New York Times best seller in 2003.
Harris has also written for Essence, The Washington Post, and Sports Illustrated. If This World Were Mine was nominated for an NAACP Image Award, and won the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence. He also founded the E. Lynn Harris Better Days Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides support to aspiring writers and artists.
On returning to his alma mater, the University of Arkansas, to teach creative writing, Harris told The Advocate in 2006 that it gave him the inspiration he needed for his latest novel. "I was coming to the end of a long-term relationship and I didn't want to revert back to old patterns," he said. "Going back to Arkansas to teach school was a safe place for me. I was supposed to teach for a semester and ended up teaching for seven.
"I got the idea for this book when I was attending a small church in Arkansas," he added. "I was working on another novel, and this idea came so forcefully I had to stop the book I was working on and write I Say a Little Prayer. It was a small church, and it was a church where I felt safe."
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