
Published: 04/02/2021

Celebrating the women who made a lasting impact on transforming literature and art in the early twentieth century, No Modernism Without Lesbians is an incredibly entertaining, heady slice of cultural history that looks beyond the canon.
Shortlisted for the Polari Book Prize 2021
The extraordinary story of how a singular group of women in a pivotal time and place - Paris, Between the Wars - fostered the birth of the Modernist movement.
Sylvia Beach, Bryher, Natalie Barney, and Gertrude Stein. A trailblazing publisher; a patron of artists; a society hostess; a groundbreaking writer.
They were all women who loved women. They rejected the patriarchy and made lives of their own - forming a community around them in Paris.
Each of these four central women interacted with a myriad of others, some of the most influential, most entertaining, most shocking and most brilliant figures of the age. Diana Souhami weaves their stories into those of the four central women to create a vivid moving tapestry of life among the Modernists in pre-War Paris.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781786694874
Number of pages: 464
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Diana Souhami argues that modernism would not exist without these extraordinary women, and their courage, passion and verve certainly make this lively group biography an inspirational read' - The Sunday Times
'Souhami is one of our most rewarding and inventive biographers, and this book is a splendidly hectic and vivid read ... If No Modernism Without Lesbians goes some way towards making us understand how they thought of themselves, and what they did, it will have done some good' - The Spectator
'Souhami has written several fine biographies ... Now, in a comprehensive cultural history, she awards lesbians the credit for modernising art, manners and morals in the early twentieth century' - The Observer
'A book about love, identity, acceptance and the freedom to write, paint, compose and wear corduroy breeches with gaiters. To swear, kiss, publish and be damned' - The Times
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