Djuna Barnes

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

Barnes was born in a log cabin on Storm King Mountain, near CornwallonHudson, New York. Her paternal grandmother Zadel Barnes was a writer, journalist, and Womens Suffrage activist who had once hosted an influential literary salon. Her father, Wald Barnes, was an unsuccessful composer, musician, and painter. An advocate of polygamy, he married Barness mother Elizabeth in 1889 his mistress Fanny Clark moved in with them in 1897, when Barnes was five. They had eight children, whom Wald made little effort to support financially. Zadel, who believed her son was a misunderstood artistic genius, struggled to provide for the entire family, supplementing her diminishing income by writing begging letters to friends and acquaintances.

Source: Wikipedia