favorite novelist is Penelope Fitzgerald, his favorite works of hers being The Beginning of Spring, The Gate of Angels and The Blue Flower. He has also been influenced by John Cheever, Alice Munro, Cynthia Ozick, Joseph Roth, W. G. Sebald, and Grace Paley, whom he credits for teaching him the importance of humble experiences in great fiction. Copyright suit In 1993, the English poet Stephen Spender sued Leavitt for copyright infringement over the publication of his novel While England Sleeps, accusing him of using elements of Spender's memoir World Within World in the novel. Viking-Penguin, Leavitt's publisher at the time, withdrew the book. In 1995, Houghton Mifflin published a revised version with a preface by Leavitt addressing the controversy. In "Courage in the Telling: The Critical Rise and Fall of David Leavitt", Drew Patrick Shannon argues that the critical backlash that accompanied Spender's suit "allowed [critics] to reinforce the boundaries between gay and mainstream literature that Leavitt had previously crossed". Subsequent reviews of Leavitt's work were more favorable. The episode provided Leavitt with the basis for his novella The Term-Paper Artist. Adaptations Two of Leavitt's novels have been filmed: The Lost Language of Cranes (1991) was directed by Nigel Finch and The Page Turner (released under the title Food of Love) was directed by Ventura Pons. The rights to a third, The Indian Clerk, have been optioned by Scott Rudin. Writings Collections Family Dancing (1984) A Place I've Never Been (1990) Arkansas (1997) The Marble Quilt (2001) Novels The Lost Language of Cranes (1986) Equal Affections (1989) While England Sleeps (1993; revised and reissued 1995) The Page Turner (1998) Martin Bauman (2000) The Body of Jonah Boyd (2004) The Indian Clerk (2007) The Two Hotel Francforts (2013) Shelter in Place (2020) Non-fiction Florence, A Delicate Case (2003) The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer (2006) Co-authored and edited collections The Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories (1993) (editor, with Mark Mitchell) Italian Pleasures (1996) (with Mark Mitchell) Pages Passed from Hand to Hand: The Hidden Tradition of Homosexual Literature in English from 1748 to 1914 (1997) (editor, with Mark Mitchell) In Maremma: Life and a House in Southern Tuscany (2001) (with Mark Mitchell) Anthologies "Chips Is Here." The Company of Dogs , edited by Michael J. Rosen, Doubleday (1990) References External links Official website Faculty page at the University of Florida Website for