My friend the writer Mariana Villa-Gilbert, who has died aged 86, was the author of several mid-century novels, including A Jingle-Jangle Song, published in 1968, an important British lesbian work.
The hermetically sealed world of her novels reflects not only the influence of Virginia Woolf, but also her own intensely oppressive upbringing. Themes of sexual ambiguity and bisexuality are important in her work. When I interviewed Mariana in 2022 as part of a project on the history of lesbian literature, she said: “I feel I am neither a woman, nor a man. I feel I am only myself.”
