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Dark and disturbing, yet strangely redemptive, Djuna Barnes’s 1936 modernist masterpiece Nightwood left even its greatest champion, T.S. Eliot, a bit bewildered. Guest Margaret Vandenburg, an expert in modernism, post-modernism and gender studies, joins us to illuminate Barnes’s tumultuous life and help us decipher her "ultimate breakup novel,” a work that casts its spell by turning the world upside down in subversive defiance of fascism.

Mentioned in this episode:

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

Craze by Margaret Vandenburg

An American in Paris by Margaret Vandenburg

Djuna: The Extraordinary Life of Djuna Barnes by Jon Macy

The Life and Work of Djuna Barnes by Phillip Herring

New York by Djuna Barnes (collected journalism)

The Book of Repulsive Women and Other Poems by Djuna Barnes

Ladies Almanac by Djuna Barnes

“The Antiphon” by Djuna Barnes

Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 266 on Radclyffe Hall

Zadel Barnes

Barnes’s 1922

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