"[On the early years of the AIDS crisis in New York City.] It was 1982 when we figured that something was really wrong. It was terrible — a kind of plague. I was 33 and the average age of the guys I knew was 36. Between 1979 and 84, about 35 of them died. All in the most horrific way. What was so awful was that everyone thought it was contagious, so they weren’t allowed in the hospital. People stopped shaking hands or kissing when they saw each other. Ivan got ill in 1983. That’s when the lesions started showing up on his face and people would run from us in the street."
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Novelists from the United StatesPlaywrights from EnglandPlaywrights from the United States20th-century African-American womenNovelists from the United Kingdom
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Greer knew many gay men while living in New York. Ivan and Tom were a gay couple to whom she was especially close in this period.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bonnie_Greer
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Bonnie Greer
Bonnie Greer, OBE FRSL (born 16 November 1948) is an American-British playwright, novelist, critic and broadcaster, who has lived in the UK since 1986. She has appeared as a panellist on television programmes such as Newsnight Review and Question Time and has served on the boards of several leading arts organisations, including the British Museum, the Royal Opera House and the London Film School. She is Vice President of the Shaw Society. She is former Chancellor of Kingston University in Kingst
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