Ahead of her time …

… The First Trans Woman in Western Fiction — The Awl. (Via LitHub.)

T.S. Eliot said that Barnes was a writer of undeniable genius but questionable talent, while Barnes herself said she was the most famous unknown of the twentieth century. When Barnes began writing the novel she was already a notorious American expatriate living in Paris, and the novel portrays real queer women from the time, including Barnes. Nightwood was born out of the Left Bank literary scene: Paris in the twenties, the Lost Generation. The novel has been called a “cult guide to the homosexual underground night world of Paris that Barnes shared with her lover, Thelma Wood,” depicted in the novel as the barbaric Robin Vote.