Scott Symons

Who was Scott Symons?

Hugh Brennan Scott Symons was a Canadian writer. Born into a wealthy family, he attended a number of private schools, the University of Toronto, Cambridge University and the Sorbonne. A rising star of Canadian literature in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he wrote two novels with homoerotic themes before leaving Canada to live in Morocco.

He was openly gay at a time when this was very difficult, publishing his first novel, Place d'Armes, which dealt directly with homosexuality, two years before gay sex was decriminalized in Canada. He was an avid diarist and many of his observations and episodes from his life found their way into his novels.

He died in Toronto at the age of 75.

Symons is the subject of a documentary film, God's Fool, by Nik Sheehan.