My introduction to David Bowie came through Let’s Dance album which totally blew me away. This was completely opposite to Paul Burston’s opinion who regards this era in Bowie’s career as nothing so special. Bowie saved his life much earlier… But I lived in a different part of the world and in a different type of society, and was not aware of the various difficulties that punctuated lives of people like him. I listened to the same type of music as a teenager yet I was unaware of any nuances, of all colours, various actions and events and what they could have represented. Poland in the ‘80s was grey, steeped in monochrome aura, and what Burston relates did not sound familiar at all. Was it too insulated?

We all have heard the energising song We Can Be Heroes and used these words to make them fit with what we had to do or wanted to achieve. Burston lives them every single day. I knew of him as a crime fiction writer, and his novel The Closer I Get (Orenda Books 2019), inspired by real-life events, was quite a revelation of twisty unsettling emotions and compulsive behaviours. His autobiography covers all relevant themes of the times; music, art, culture – and activism, politics, social challenges and social changes, and the incredible personal experiences, shaped by the simple fact that he’s gay and acutely aware of what is going on around him, combined with the strong sense for social justice. There are joy and happiness, also pain and shame. Most of all there are passion and honesty: ‘In 2007 I turned forty-two and launched my own literary salon. Polari was the culmination of everything I’d ever done. It was me accommodating my pasts within my persona – drama student, theatre practitioner, activist, journalist, author and shameless exhibitionist.’ We Can Be Heroes will resonate with so many readers, will bring memories, and start discussions, whatever their upbringing, identity or sexual orientation. The book opens eyes as the author shares all: blood, sweat and tears. And for that I’m grateful.

Paul Burston is curator and host of award-winning LGBTQ+ literary salon Polari and founder of the Polari Prize book awards for LGBTQ+ writers, based at the British Library. In 2016, he featured in the British Council’s Global List of ’33 visionary people promoting freedom, equality and LGBT rights around the world’. A Rainbow List National Treasure, he is one of the subjects of Alexis Gregory’s critically acclaimed verbatim play Riot Act, which celebrates generations of gay activism from the Stonewall Riots to the present day.

Before turning to journalism, Paul was an AIDS activist with ACT UP London and regularly risked arrest by blocking traffic, occupying the offices of the Australian Embassy and catapulting condoms over the walls of Pentonville Prison. He was arrested many times and stood trial at Bow Street magistrates court, where he was acquitted. He also worked for the Gay London Policing Group, GALOP, taking calls from men who’d been queer bashed or arrested for consensual sexual offences.  His first ever commission as a freelance journalist was a profile of trans film-maker Kristiene Clarke. In 1990 he became Gay Editor at City Limits and in 1993 became LGBT Editor at Time Out, where he worked for 20 years, documenting the changing cultural and political landscape. Nominated for a Stonewall Award for his journalism, in 2008 he accepted the award for Publication of the Year for the magazine’s LGBTQ+ coverage. A founding editor of Attitude magazine, Paul’s writing has also appeared in the Guardian, the Sunday Times and many other publications. He has also written and presented documentaries for Channel 4 and is a regular contributor to TV and radio.

We Can Be Heroes is his story of growing up in small town Wales, and escaping to London to find sanctity in the vibrant and growing LGBTQ+ community. But this community wasn’t the safe haven he hoped for, as it became decimated by AIDS. From activist, to journalist, to leading LGBTQ+ literary figure, and everything in between, this is Paul’s candid, revealing and emotional memoir of endurance, time and time again. Emotional but often witty, We Can Be Heroes is an illuminating memoir of the eighties, nineties and noughties from a gay man who only just survived them.