Nightwood

Djuna Barnes / The New Book

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A cycle of literary events focused on the most interesting new books and writers.

The Common-Room Free entry

Nightwood is a 1936 novel by Djuna Barnes first published in London by Faber and Faber. It is one of the earliest prominent novels to portray explicit homosexuality between women, and as such can be considered lesbian literature.

It is also notable for its intense, gothic prose style. The novel employs modernist techniques such as its unusual form or narrative and can be considered metafiction, and it was praised by other modernist authors including T. S. Eliot, who wrote an introduction included in the 1937 edition published by Harcourt, Brace. As a roman à clef, the novel features a thinly veiled portrait of Barnes in the character of Nora Flood, whereas Nora's lover Robin Vote is a composite of Thelma Wood and the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.

See also

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