Djuna Barnes

A “striking lesbian manifesto and a deft parody” by the acclaimed author of Nightwood. (—Library Journal) Blending fiction, myth, and revisionary parody, Ladies Almanack is a brilliant modernist composition and arguably the most audacious lesbian text of its time. While the book pokes fun at the wealthy Paris expatriates who were Barnes' literary contemporaries and remains controversial today, it seems to have delighted its cast of characters, who were also the book’s first audience. Arranged by month, it records the life and loves of Dame Evangeline Musset in a robust style taken from Shakespeare and Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. Published for the first time in decades, this edition features Barnes’ original woodcut illustrations and a new introduction by Sarah Schulman.

Djuna Barnes is rightly remembered for Nightwood, her breakthrough and final novel: a hallmark of modernist literature, championed by T. S. Eliot, and one of the first, strangest, and most brilliant novels of love between women to be published in the twentieth century. Barnes’s career began long before Nightwood, however, with journalism, essays, drama, and satire of extraordinary wit and courage. Long into her later life, after World War II, when she published nothing more, it was her short fiction above all that she prized and would continue to revise. Here are all the stories Barnes sought to preserve, in the versions she preferred, as well as a smattering of rarities as selected by critic and New Yorker contributor Merve Emre. These are tales of women “‘tragique’ and ‘triste’ and ‘tremendous’ all at once,” of sons and daughters being initiated into the ugly comedy of life, monuments all to a worldview singular and scathing. As Emre writes in her foreword, “[Barnes’s] themes are love and death, especially in Paris and New York; the corruption of nature by culture; the tainted innocence of children; and the mute misery of beasts . . . her characters may be alien to life, but they are alive - spectacularly, grotesquely alive.”

From the author of Nightwood, Djuna Barnes has written a book that is all that she was, and must still be vulgar, beautiful, defiant, witty, poetic, and a little mad.Told as through a kaleidoscope, the chronicle of the Ryder family is a bawdy tale of eccentricity and anarchy; through sparkling detours and pastiche, cult author Djuna Barnes spins an audacious, intricate story of sexuality, power, and praxis.Ryder, like its namesake, Wendell Ryder, is many things—lyric, prose, fable, illustration; protagonist, bastard, bohemian, polygamist. Born in the 1800s to infamous nonconformist Sophia Grieve Ryder, Wendell’s search for identity takes him from Connecticut to England to multifarious digressions on morality, tradition, and gender. Censored upon its first release in 1928, Ryder’s portrayal of sexuality remains revolutionary despite the passing of time and the expurgations in the text, preserved by Barnes in protest of the war “blindly raged against the written word.” The weight of Wendell’s story endures despite this censorship, as his drive to assume the masculine roles of patriarch and protector comes at the sacrifice of the women around him.A vanguard modernist, Djuna Barnes has been called the patron literary saint of Bohemia, and her second novel, Ryder, evinces her cutting wit and originality. The nonlinear structure and polyphonic narration pull the reader into Barnes’ harlequin world like a riptide, echoing the melodic cascade of James Joyce’s Ulysses and the avant-garde feminism of Dorothy Richardson. The novel is a rhapsodic saga that could have come only from Barnes’ pen—and politics—as impactful today upon at its first pressing, a document of sexual revolution and censorship.

Djuna Barnes - Lament of Women & Other RhythmsForgotten Poets #22 / forgottenpoets.substack.com'Lament of Women & Other Rhythms' brings together a collection of New York poet Djuna Barnes' poems and drawings, including the complete 'Book of Repulsive Women' (1915), alongside a generous selection of her verse originally published in underground poetry and arts magazines (1911-23), and her second full-length collection, 'A Book' (1923); with the short-story 'Finale' (1918); and 20 newly restored illustrations and portraits by Barnes.. . . . . . . . .-: This Much & More: -If my lover were a cometHung in air, I would braid my leaping bodyIn his hair.Yea, if they buried him ten leaguesBeneath the loam, My fingers would learn to digAnd I'd plunge home . . . . . . . . .-: Finis: -For you? For me?Why then the striking hour, The wind among the curtains, and the treadOf some late gardener pulling at the flowerThey'll lay between our hearts when we are dead.. . . . . . . . .The Forgotten Poets Newsletter presents: new collections of out-of-print and obscure poetry, with a focus on compressed & fragmented 'free' and 'new' verse from the late-1800s & early-1900s, & the early history of English-language tanka & haiku. Verses are carefully selected & spaciously laid-out, adorned with illustrations & ornaments from the books & magazines they originally appeared in.

NYÖVERSÄTTNINGNattens skogar av Djuna Barnes handlar om natten. Om vad kärlek och åtrå och natten gör med oss. Barnes modernistiska mästerverk utspelar sig i Paris på 1920-talet. Det är här vi möter Nora Flood, Jenny Petherbridge och Matthew O´Connor. Det är här vi möter den mystiska, excentriska, dekadenta, oförglömliga Robin Vote. Hon som alla älskar och åtrår. Hon som ingen förstår. Hon som är som natten. Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) var en amerikansk författare, poet och journalist. Hon var en del av den amerikanska litterära exil som levde och verkade i Paris under 1920- och 1930-talen. Nattens skogar räknas idag som ett av modernismens största och mest oförglömliga mästerverk. Det är en bok som när den väl börjat gro i dig aldrig slutar att växa. Denna utgåva är framtagen i samarbete mellan Modernista och Sjösala förlag. I ny svensk översättning av Erik Thompson och med förord av Björn Kohlström.

Poisoned cigars, seductive apparitions, minds and empires in the last of their decline and the most notorious kiss in dramatic history – decadent plays challenged the moral as much as the dramatic imagination of their own day, and continue to probe horizons of taste and the possibilities of stagecraft. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many writers reacted to urban modernity by embracing decadent themes and styles, and dramatists were no exception. Decadence offered these writers a framework for exploring nonconformist identities and beliefs that challenged behavioural norms as much as the desirability of modern progress. Decadent plays were at once behind the times in their celebration of antiquity, and forward-thinking in their staging of themes that have become all the more timely in the 21st century, including queerness, unconventional eroticism, and critiques of empire and industrial progress. Equally, the diversity of decadent drama cannot be pigeon-holed; many of these plays still have the capacity to offend worldviews, and invite us to interrogate present-day conventions and propriety.International in scope and eclectic in content, this edited anthology is an authoritative and accessible introduction to a fast-expanding field of decadent literature. The first publication of its kind to deal with decadent drama, and featuring plays translated into English for the first time, Decadent Plays: 1890–1930 breaks new ground by foregrounding decadence as a dramatic sensibility in this most pivotal of periods in the history of modern drama.Featuring canonical and little-known works by Oscar Wilde, Michael Field, Lesya Ukrainka, Rachilde, Remy de Gourmont, Jean Lorrain, Leonid Andreyev, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Maurice Maeterlinck, Izumi Kyoka, and Djuna Barnes, this anthology is an essential introduction to decadent drama that will pique the interest of specialists and non-specialists alike.

This work is a novel in which real persons or actual events figure under disguise. Its subject is the predominantly lesbian social circle centering on Natalie Clifford Barney's salon in Paris in the 1920s. The language, inside jokes and ambiguity of the work have kept critics arguing about whether it is an affectionate satire or a bitter attack, but Barney herself loved the book and re-read it throughout her life.

The book "" A Book, has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies and hence the text is clear and readable.

Natteskov fra 1936 af Djuna Barnes er syvende bind i Turbines klassikerserie.Natteskov er på en og samme tid en roman, som udfolder skyggetilværelsen i mellemkrigstidens store europæiske byer Paris, Wien og Berlin i al deres dekadence, og som ligeledes beskriver et homoseksuelt kærlighedsforhold i detaljer. Forholdet mellem den unge amerikaner Robin Vote og hendes elskerinder Nora Flood og Jenny Petherbridge danner et udpenslet bagtæppe til Barnes’ modernistiske intensitet, som har gjort Natteskov til en af de mest hyldede og læste romaner om lesbiske forhold.Sagt om Natteskov:”Et af de bedste prosaværker nogensinde skrevet”Dylan Thomas”En af de bedste romaner i det 20. århundrede”William S. Burroughs

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. 'I have quite changed my mind. I am going to run away and become a boy.'In these three stories, written by Djuna Barnes under the pseudonym Lydia Steptoe, three characters find themselves on the brink of a sexual awakening - accompanied by guns, whips, and worldly innuendo.A fourteen-year-old girl plans to become 'a virago', until her mother intercepts her first tryst by dressing up as her male lover. A boy of the same age is lured into the forest by his father's mistress. A woman of forty falls in love and longs to kill herself, so unbearable is the return of the youth she thought she wanted. 'Alice', she tells herself, 'be a man.'Barnes makes gender and desire seem slippery and joyful - and makes the fictional Lydia Steptoe seem like a writer for our time.Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

»Oförglömlig berättelse om två kvinnors kärlek och lidande. Att läsa den är som att dricka vin och se en pärla upplösas i glaset. Du har tagit in mer än du vet, boken bara fortsätter arbeta i dig.« Jeanette Winterson »När jag läser Nattens skogar känner jag mig som kvinnan på omslaget; förförd, naken, inne i min egen värld tillsammans med boken, som sannerligen är en pärla.« Karenina.seDjuna Barnes Nattens skogar, ett av den litterära modernismens mest ikoniska verk, dokumenterar amerikaner, irländare, österrikare, judar - alla i någon form av exil - i det dekadenta tjugotalets Paris, Berlin och Wien. Ingen glömmer romanens huvudpersoner efter att ha mött dem: Robin Vote, Nora Flood, Jenny Petherbridge, Matthew O Connor. Men framför allt är det Djuna Barnes rika, stämningsmättade språk, med dess djuplodande insikter i besatthetens natur, som gör Nattens skogar [Nightwood, 1936] till ett enastående prosaverk. En av den engelskspråkiga 1900-talslitteraturens stora klassiker, här i Thomas Warburtons formidabla svenska översättning. DJUNA BARNES [1892-1982] var en amerikansk författare, poet, dramatiker, journalist och konstnär. Hon tillhörde den legendariska amerikanska författar- och konstnärskolonin i Paris på 1920- och 1930-talen. I dag räknas hon till den engelskspråkiga modernismens stora namn, tillsammans med James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot och Gertrude Stein.»Så bra att endast den som övat sina sinnen med poesi förmår uppskatta den så mycket den förtjänar.« T. S. Eliot

»Djuna Barnes imponerades av inget, men fascinerades av allt. Mest av allt var hon en skicklig iakttagare av människor, fra n tonläge och ordval till handlingar.« | Sara Danius, DNDjuna Barnes, en av modernismens stora ikoner, var en mästare i novellgenren. Ändå var hon sparsam med att återpublicera novellerna. När hon väl gjorde det så reviderade hon dem ofta sa mycket att det blev nya texter. Så skedde med det svenska urvalet Natt bland hästar, som därigenom kom att bli ett unikt Djuna Barnes­-verk. Tio noveller - av vilka ett flertal hör till hennes mest klassiska - däribland titelnovellen (Natt bland hästar), Utsläpp, Läkarna och Kaninen, som författaren skickade till Sverige i grundligt omarbetade versioner.Reidar Ekners eminenta svenska översättningar av Djuna Barnes­-noveller, Natt bland hästar, utgör en sann litterär skatt. Lite drygt ett halvt sekel senare blir de nu tillgängliga på nytt, tillsammans med Meta Ottossons nyöversättning av novellen Aller et retour. Med ett nyskrivet förord av litteraturkritikern Jonas Thente.DJUNA BARNES [1892-1982] var en amerikansk för­fattare, poet, dramatiker, journalist och konstnär. Hon tillhörde den legendariska amerikanska författar­ och konstnärskolonin i Paris på 1920­- och 1930­-talen. I dag räknas hon till den engelskspråkiga modernismens sto­ra namn, vid sidan av James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot och Gertrude Stein.

T. S. Eliot recognized Djuna Barnes as "incontestably one of the most original writers of our time." This collection of Barnes's early work features journalism (including a firsthand account of the force-feeding endured by suffragettes and an interview with James Joyce), poetry ("The Book of Repulsive Women"), and stories ("Smoke").