Barnes, Djuna << JOON uh >> (1892-1982), an American writer, was a major figure in the thriving Paris literary scene of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Her novel Nightwood (1936) ranks as a classic of modernist literature.
Nightwood is a partly autobiographical story concerning the love affairs of five unconventional characters in Paris during the 1920’s. The central figure is a young American woman named Robin Vote. The character of journalist Nora Flood, one of Vote’s lovers, may serve as a self-portrait of the author. The novel has been praised for its intense language and its blend of humor with the tragic and the nightmarish. Nightwood was one of the first modern novels to have same-sex attraction as a main theme.
Barnes’s first published work was A Book (1923), a collection of her plays, short stories, poems, and drawings. It was expanded in 1929 as A Night Among the Horses and revised in 1962 as Spillway. Ladies Almanack (1928) is a satirical view of a group of lesbian writers in Paris during the 1920’s. Ryder (1928), Barnes’s first novel, covers four generations of the Ryder family. Barnes tells the story in chapters that do not follow in chronological order. She wrote the chapters in the styles of various major writers in history.
Several collections of Barnes’s writings were published after her death. She wrote some of her works under the pen name Lydia Steptoe. Interviews (1985) collects interviews Barnes conducted with celebrities from 1913 to 1931. New York (1989) is a selection of her newspaper articles. Poe’s Mother (1995) is a selection of her drawings. Collected Stories appeared in 1996.
Barnes was born on June 12, 1892, on her family farm at Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York. She was homeschooled. After leaving her home for New York City, she briefly attended the Pratt Institute in 1912 and 1913 and the Art Students League in 1915 and 1916. Barnes began her writing career as a reporter and illustrator. In 1921, McCall’s Magazine sent her to Paris as a correspondent, and she remained in the city for almost 20 years
Shortly after the publication of Nightwood, Barnes stopped writing almost completely. She returned to the United States in 1939 and lived in isolation in an apartment in New York City until her death on June 18, 1982. Interest in Barnes’s work declined during her silence, but it revived after her death.
