Guillaume Dustan

Guillaume Dustan (28 November 1965, Paris – 3 October 2005) was a French writer. Dustan's 1998 novel, In My Room, brought the author instant notoriety for his masterful use of autofiction and depiction of gay glamour and romance in mid-1990s Paris. He was openly gay.

Early life and education Dustan was born William Baranès in France in 1965. He graduated from the École nationale d'administration and worked as an administrative judge before turning to writing. He used the pen name Guillaume Dustan from 1995 onwards.

Work Dustan's first novel, Dans ma chambre (In My Room) (1996), brought him immense fame in France for his ambitious portrayal of gay life in a Paris celebrated for its sensual pleasures and haunted by the AIDS crisis. He also edited Le Rayon Gay, a collection of books, for Balland.

Dustan's first three novels, In My Room, I'm Going Out Tonight, and Stronger Than Me, published in France between 1996 and 1998, were re-released in English by Semiotext(e) in 2021. Edited by Thomas Clerc and translated by Daniel Maroun, the novels follow the narrator's sexual journeys in Paris.

He was a contemporary of such gay writers as Herve Guibert, Dennis Cooper, Kevin Killian, and Gary Indiana.

Death Dustan died of an accidental drug overdose on 3 October 2005. He is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery (division 29).