Djuna Barnes

En el París de los años veinte, en un ambiente que fluctúa entre la aristocracia, la bohemia y el mundo del circo, se encarna el enigma esencial de la condición humana en la figura de la joven Robin Vote, fascinada por la atraccion del abismo, y en las tres personas que se disputan su amor: el falso baron judio vienes Felix Volkbein, la leal Nora Flood y la avida Jenny Petherbridge. Testigo de la historia, y confidente de Felix y Nora, el extravagante doctor Matthew O?Connor. El bosque de la noche, obra maestra de Djuna Barnes y una de las grandes novelas de la literatura del pasado siglo, sigue provocando hoy la misma admiracion que genero tras su publicacion. Calificada por TS Eliot como el genio mas grande de su epoca, Barnes trascendio cualquier etiqueta, imbuida del mismo espiritu transgresor que ilumino toda su produccion literaria. Esta nueva edicion, con prologo de Siri Hustvedt, vuelve a poner en valor una novela que la autora norteamericana bellamente define como un canto a la gente que el mundo deshecha: los desheredados, los descarriados, los herejes y los rebeldes.

Los cuentos de juventud de Djuna Barnes dibujan un mapa hacia la madurez de esta escritora que, con el paso del tiempo, ha sido reconocida como miembro de pleno derecho de la "generación perdida" y admirada por autores como James Joyce, Dylan Thomas o arson McCullers. Estos relatos, publicados en las principales revistas y periodicos neoyorquinos de principios del siglo xx, permiten conocer la bohemia, el origen de la obra de Barnes y entender la posicion que decidio adoptar a lo largo de su vida, huyendo de las luces de neon y de las fiestas y salones literarios. Una joven que, sin apenas experiencia, "reinvento" de algun modo el genero y cuestiono el periodismo de la epoca, masculino y sensacionalista. No puede interpretarse su gran obra, El bosque de la noche, sin entender como Barnes, desde un aparente costumbrismo, se adentro en lo simbolico; tampoco se puede explicar como, despues de vivir un exilio intelectual dorado en Paris, regreso a Greenwich Village, el territorio literario de este libro y el barrio de sus primeras debilidades, vitales y creativas, donde paso sus ultimos cuarenta años encerrada en un diminuto apartamento.

Nightwood tells the stories of the love-lives of a group of Americans and Europeans in Paris in the 1920s - an exotic, night-time underworld, eccentric, seedy and beautiful. One of the earliest novels to explicitly portray homosexuality, the influence of Djuna Barnes' novel has been, and continues to be, exceptional. Nightwood is not only a classic of modernist literature, but was also acknowledged by T. S. Eliot as one of the great novels of the twentieth century.

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 fathers 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.

Lose yourself in the tortured love lives of expats in 1920s Paris in this iconic cult classic.Nightwood is itself. It is its own created world, exotic and strange, and reading it is like drinking wine with a pearl dissolving in the glass ... From now on, a part of you is pearl-lined.Jeanette WintersonLike a dark lesbian genius rolling in a giant heap of damp, dead leaves. What a great, shaking, grieving party this book is - the best.Eileen MylesI read with the aching intensity of a person possessed ... The story of passion and grief, of exile and loneliness, spoke directly to me, a young woman who [never] felt she quite belonged ... A hymn to the dispossessed, the misbegotten and those who love too much. Siri Hustvedt Nightwood tells the stories of the love-lives of a group of American expats and Europeans in Paris in the 1920s - an exotic, night-time underworld, eccentric, seedy and beautiful. A modernist masterpiece, and one of the earliest novels to explicitly portray homosexuality, the influence of Djuna Barness novel remains exceptional.A bold, exceptionally well-written modernist prose poem ... The closest thing to James Joyce.Andre AcimanThe great achievement of a style, the beauty of phrasing, the brilliance of wit and characterisation, and a quality of horror and doom very nearly related to that of Elizabethan tragedy. T.S. EliotOne of the greatest books of the twentieth century. William S. BurroughsA writer of wild and original gifts . To her name there is always to be attached the splendor of Nightwood, a lasting achievement of her great gifts and eccentricities - her passionate prose and, in this case, a genuineness of human passions.Elizabeth Hardwick

Una colección de relatos humanamente desprovistos de psicologismos y convencionalismos. Djuna Barnes es una de las escritoras más legendarias de este siglo, no solamente debido a la altísima calidad de su obra literaria, alabada por T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner y Malcolm Lowry, sino tambien por la extraña combinacion de brillo mundano y larguisimo silencio final que fue su vida. Si Gertrude Stein solo tuvo palabras de admiracion para sus piernas, la posteridad le ha reservado un lugar de honor para sus obras.Humo es una coleccion de relatos humanamente desprovistos de psicologismos y convencionalismos, en los que Djuna Barnes traza un retrato mitico de la ciudad moderna, de la Babilonia apocaliptica.Pequeñas joyas de una gran escritora, no se sabe que destacar mas de estos cuentos, si el prodigio de su estilo, rebosante de imagenes y metaforas tan inesperadas como certeras, su singular sentido del humor o la fuerza narrativa con la que estan contadas estas historias de desheredados y marginales, de hombres y mujeres a caballo entre lo grotesco y lo angelico, entre la experiencia y la inocencia.

Al centro della Foresta della notte dorme la Bella Schizofrenica, in un letto dell'Hotel Récamier. T. S. Eliot, accompagnando questo libro alla sua uscita, scrisse che vi trovava "una qualità di orro

'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.

Djuna Barnes'' novel documents the lives of Americans and Europeans in Paris in the decadent roaring twenties.

Traducción del inglés por Juan Antonio Masoliver Ródenas en colaboración con Celia Szusterman