Barnes, Djuna [key], 1892–1982, American author, b. Cornwall, N.Y. She is best known for her modernist novel Nightwood (1936), which, in its sense of horror and decay, was likened by T. S. Eliot, who edited the book, to an Elizabethan tragedy. Barnes also wrote several one-act plays produced by the Provincetown Players from 1919 to 1920. Her other works include Ryder (1928), a novel; collections of short stories and poems, including A Night Among Horses (1929) and Selected Works (1962); and The Antiphon (1958), a tragedy in verse.
See biographies by A. Field (1983, 1985) and P. Herring (1995).
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