Djuna Barnes

Djuna Barnes, born on June twelfth, nineteen hundred and two, was a multifaceted American artist whose talents spanned poetry, novel writing, journalism, and painting. She is perhaps best known for her groundbreaking novel, Nightwood, published in nineteen thirty-six, which has since become a cult classic in lesbian fiction and a significant work of modernist literature.

Beginning her career in nineteen thirteen, Barnes worked as a freelance journalist and illustrator for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. By early nineteen fourteen, she had established herself as a prominent feature reporter and illustrator, contributing to the leading newspapers and periodicals of New York City. Her connections with the vibrant bohemian community of Greenwich Village allowed her to publish her prose, poetry, illustrations, and one-act plays in both avant-garde literary journals and popular magazines, including her illustrated volume of poetry, The Book of Repulsive Women, released in nineteen fifteen.

In nineteen twenty-one, a lucrative commission with McCall's magazine took Barnes to Paris, where she would reside for the next decade. During this time, she published several notable works, including A Book in nineteen twenty-three, which was later reissued as A Night Among the Horses in nineteen twenty-nine, along with Ladies Almanack and Ryder, both published in nineteen twenty-eight.

The nineteen thirties saw Barnes traveling between England, Paris, New York, and North Africa, a period marked by restlessness that culminated in the writing and publication of Nightwood. After nearly two decades spent primarily in Europe, she returned to New York in October nineteen thirty-nine. Her final major work, the verse play The Antiphon, was published in nineteen fifty-eight, and she passed away in her apartment at Patchin Place, Greenwich Village, in June nineteen eighty-two.