Djuna Barnes was an American poet, playwright, novelist, and visual artist who lived and worked in Paris during the Interwar Period. Known for her experimentation with form and melding of different literary mediums, Barnes pushed the boundaries of what literature could be.

Djuna Barnes was born in 1892 in New York. In the 1920s and 30s, she lived a chic life in Paris with a group of expatriates known as the Lost Generation. During her time in France, she wrote four novels, including her most famous work, Nightwood, a work that incorporates the influence and stylistic elements of plays, poetry, music, and even visual arts. A tale about a string of broken love affairs, the novel spurns a traditional plot structure, instead experimenting with form. In all her works, Barnes was innovative. She played with structure and medium, finding ways to incorporate past literary tradition while incorporating new style. Her works are often satirical and sardonic. Additionally, her stories often dealt with queerness, as she featured cross-dressing and lesbian characters. Djuna herself had several affairs with women, though she spent her life distancing herself from that identity, famously stating “I’m not a lesbian, I just loved Thelma.”

In the 1940s she walked away from her successful literary career to live a reclusive life in New York City. She spent the rest of her life in near literary silence and died in her Greenwich Village apartment in 1982. Her writing, while somewhat famous in her lifetime, is less known than her contemporaries. However, her work has gained new traction in the last several decades with modern scholars recognizing the significance of the experimentation in her writing.