* Finalist for the Headmistress Press Charlotte Mew Prize
Renee Vivien (nee Pauline Mary Tarn, 1877-1909) was an English expatriate who made her home in Paris during the Belle Epoque. In 1903, Vivien's collection of translations and adaptations from the Ancient Greek poetry of Sappho became one of the first works of modern European lesbian literature to be published by a lesbian writer under her real name. This courageous act was the death-sentence of her literary career.Parisiancritics who had praised the mysterious "R. Vivien" as a young man of poetic genius began to snub at first and...