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Nancy Cunard
English writer, heiress and political activist (1896–1965)
Nancy Clara Cunard (10 March 1896 – 17 March 1965) was a British writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class, and devoted much of her life to fighting racism and fascism.2
From Wikipedia’s article on Nancy Cunard (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.
Born Mar 10, 1896, died Mar 17, 1965.1
About
She became a muse to some of the 20th century's most distinguished writers and artists, including Wyndham Lewis, Aldous Huxley, Tristan Tzara, Ezra Pound and Louis Aragon—who were among her lovers—as well as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Constantin Brâncuși, Langston Hughes, Man Ray and William Carlos Williams. MI5 documents reveal that she was involved with Indian diplomat, orator, and statesman V. K. Krishna Menon.
In later years she suffered from mental illness, and her physical health deteriorated. When she died in the Hôpital Cochin, Paris, she weighed only 26 kilograms (57 pounds; 4 stone 1 pound).
From Wikipedia’s article on Nancy Cunard, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2
Career
Occupation: polo player, poet, journalist, publisher, writer, activist.4
- Date not recordedFounded Hours press3
Personal life
Politics
In 1928 (after a two-year affair with Louis Aragon) Cunard began a relationship with Henry Crowder, an African-American jazz musician who was working in Paris. In 1930, she published Henry Music, a compilation of compositions by Crowder accompanied by poems by Samuel Beckett, Henry Acton, Richard Aldington, and Walter Lowenfels she commissioned for the publication. She became an activist in matters concerning racial politics and civil rights in the US, and visited Harlem. In 1931, she published the pamphlet Black Man and White Ladyship, an attack on racist attitudes as exemplified by Cunard's mother, whom she quoted as saying: "Is it true that my daughter knows a Negro?"
She edited the massive Negro Anthology, collecting poetry, fiction, and nonfiction primarily by African-American writers, including Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. It included writing by George Padmore and Cunard's own account of the Scottsboro Boys case. Press attention to this project in May 1932, two years before it was published, led to Cunard's receiving anonymous threats and hate mail, some of which she published in the book, expressing regret that "[others] are obscene, so this portion of American culture cannot be made public."
She identified as an anarchist.
From Wikipedia’s article on Nancy Cunard (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.
Links
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1WikidataNancy Cunard on Wikidata
- 2WikipediaNancy Cunard on Wikipedia
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- 9Wikimedia CommonsNancy Cunard photo by Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain