Portal:LGBT/Selected biography/13

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Natalie Clifford Barney (31 October 1876 – 2 February 1972) was an American expatriate who lived, wrote, and hosted a literary salon in Paris. She was a poet, memoirist, and epigrammatist, but believed her life was her true work of art.

Her salon, held at her home on Paris's Left Bank for more than 60 years, brought together writers and artists from around the world, including many of the leading figures in French literature as well as the American and British Modernists of the Lost Generation. She worked to promote writing by women, forming a "Women's Academy" in response to the all-male French Academy, while also providing support and inspiration to male writers from Remy de Gourmont to Truman Capote. She was openly lesbian and began publishing love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900, considering scandal "the best way of getting rid of nuisances". (MORE...)