Djuna Barnes was an American artist, illustrator, journalist, and writer, best known for her novel Nightwood (1936), a cult classic of lesbian fiction and an important work of modernist literature.

In 1913, Barnes began her career as a freelance journalist and illustrator for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. By early 1914, she was a highly sought-after feature reporter, interviewer, and illustrator whose work appeared in the city's leading newspapers and periodicals. Her talent and connections with prominent Greenwich Village bohemians afforded her the opportunity to publish her prose, poems, illustrations, and one-act plays in both avant-garde literary journals and popular magazines. One of her early works was the illustrated volume of poetry, The Book of Repulsive Women (1915).

In 1921, Barnes moved to Paris due to a lucrative commission with McCall's, where she lived for the next 10 years. During this period, she published several works, including A Book (1923), later reissued as A Night Among the Horses (1929), Ladies Almanack (1928), and Ryder (1928).

Throughout the 1930s, she spent time in England, Paris, New York, and North Africa. During this restless time, she wrote and published Nightwood. After spending nearly two decades in Europe, Barnes returned to New York in October 1939. Her last major work, the verse play The Antiphon, was published in 1958. She passed away in her apartment at Patchin Place, Greenwich Village in June 1982.