Janet Flanner

(1892 - 1978)

Born in Indianapolis in 1892, Janet Flanner lived in Paris from 1922 to 1975, except during World War II. For nearly fifty years, under the pen name Genêt, she wrote the Letters from Paris column for The New Yorker. Of her process she wrote, “I act as a sponge. I soak it up and squeeze it out in ink every two weeks.” Her columns were compiled in three collections. After leaving Paris, she lived in New York City with her lover of thirty-eight years, the publishing executive Natalia Danesi Murray, until Flanner’s death in 1978.