Granddaughter of a suffragette, Djuna Barnes paved the way in Literature

On the eve of LGBT+ Pride Month, it is time to remember those who paved the way, such as American writer, playwright and illustrator Djuna Barnes (Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, New York, June 12, 1892 – June 18, 1982). She became known for her novel “The Night Woods” (1936), compared by the poet TS Eliot to the great English literature of the 16th century.

Djuna had a troubled relationship with artist Thelma Wood and attended meetings with other writers at Nathalie Barney’s house. In 1928, as times were difficult for lesbians, he had to anonymously publish one of his best works, “The Ladies’ Almanac”, in which he celebrated lesbian eroticism with illustrations and humorous and ironic mannerisms.

The work was banned by customs in the United States due to its content. Three years later, Djuna ended her relationship with Thelma Wood, left Paris for England, but with the outbreak of the Second World War, she returned to the United States.

Djuna’s father was wealthy and liberal, and dedicated himself to his farm on Long Island after failing as a painter. Her mother, an English violinist, educated her and her four siblings within the educational system, being helped in this task by Djuna’s grandmother, a suffragette woman.

Influenced by her father’s dream, Djuna entered the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1911, and then moved to the Art Students League for a short period of time. After her parents’ divorce, Djuna moved to Greenwich Village and began working as an independent journalist and illustrator, writing for several New York newspapers, such as the Brooklyn Eagle.

She debuted as a poet in 1915, with “The Book of Repellent Women”, a collection of poems and drawings. Between 1919 and 1920, three plays by her were staged at the Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village, where she collaborated with Eugene O’Neill. She married editor Courtenay Lemon, but the marriage soon foundered.

In 1920 he left for the city of Paris and lived away from his homeland for twenty years. There she established contact with personalities such as Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, TS Eliot and the controversial poet Ezra Pound. She also began to consume alcoholic beverages excessively. In 1923 she published her second collection of poems accompanied by drawings, with the title “Um Livro”.

In 1936 the work considered the most considerable in his career would appear, “The Night Woods”, prefaced by TS Eliot, and in which he describes the vicissitudes of a complicated and not always reciprocated love triangle. She was elected a Fellow of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1961. She died on June 18, 1982, in Greenwich Village.

Construction

The Book of Repulsive Women: 8 Rhythms and 5 Drawings (1915)

Three from the Earth (1919) (play)

Kurzy from the Sea (1920) (play)

An Irish Triangle (1921) (play)

She Tells Her Daughter (1923) (play)

A Book (1923)

Ladies Almanack (1928)

Ryder (1928)

A Night Among the Horses (1929)

Nightwood (1936)

The Antiphon (1958) (play)

Spillway (1962)

Selected Works (1962)

Vagaries Malicieux (1974)

Creatures in an Alphabet (1982)

Smoke and Other Early Stories (1982)

I Could Never Be Lonely without a Husband: Interviews by Djuna Barnes (1987) (ed. by A Barry)

Djuna Barnes’s New York (1989)

At the Roots of the Stars: The Short Plays (1995)

Poe’s Mother: Selected Drawings (1996) (ed. and with an introduction by Douglas Messerli)

Collected Stories of Djuna Barnes (1996)

Collected Poems: With Notes Toward the Memoirs (2005) (ed. Phillip Herring and Osias Stutman)