David Leavitt

David Leavitt born 23 June 1961

David Leavitt is an American novelist and author.

He is the author of Family Dancing, Equal Affections, The Page Turner, Martin Bauman, or A Sure Thing, The Lost Language of Cranes, While England Sleeps (for the publication of which he was sued by Stephen Spender), The Body of Jonah Boyd, and numerous short stories. His most recent novel is The Indian Clerk.

Leavitt, who is openly gay, has frequently explored gay issues in his work.

At the University of Florida he is a member of the Creative Writing faculty and is also the editor of Subtropics magazine, The University of Florida's literary review. He divides his time between Florida and Tuscany (Italy), where he had many of his books translated.

In 1994–5, Leavitt was sued by the poet Stephen Spender, who claimed Leavitt had plagiarised his memoir in While England Sleeps. Subsequently, Viking Press, Leavitt's publishers, agreed to delete a passage that closely paralleled Spender's. The publishers also agreed never to publish the manuscript that had become the subject of the charge of plagiarism. In addition, Spender claimed that not only had Leavitt plagiarised his writing, but that he had fictionalised his life. The novel was subsquently republished, much revised.